
■^■Mw';-!'''; ' ! ;■' 

p:;'';:;i;':;::.:::,--;:>. 

n \ ■■ui *;>>)>./■ ;. -. . , ^ 



Ui 



i< '•i::v,.im'*v .■•,",,1 vn.'.l 



\'<' 



• \ 



'^^ ^': 



v^-:;/j^i 



j; ^ X -< - ■'■■ 

»^ .0- -o. 




■^a^ 






''%^ 



"^'^;. 












L-^' 









A^ 






'*c. 















•^^ v^ 



















%# 









>^'\'^>»^' /■ -^ ^1 






» X " ^V. 






^0 



O o. 






'^, 



,,V 









'^^W^^ 



,0 0^ 






'"^■' 0^ 



^. 



%: 



» ,>. 









■^'■_ * N ^ ^V 



-^^ 










O. -^ , ;^ 






THE CREEVEY PAPERS 



First Edition . . 

Reprinted .... 

Reprinted .... 

Reprinted .... 

Second Edition . . 
{Fifth Impressioii) 

Reprinted .... 

One Vol. Edition . 



November^ 1903- 
December.^ i903' 
Jamiary^ 1904. 
Jan7iary, 1904, 
Febfiiary, 1904. 

February^ 1904. 
March, 1904. 




&o<!^J^i^U-^k'ic 







^ //.^^/L^-..-^^ //^/v 



THE CREEVEY PAPERS 

A SELECTION FROM THE CORRES- 
PONDENCE & DIARIES OF THE LATE 

THOMAS CREEVEY, M.P. 

I) 

BORN 1768— DIED 1838 

EDITED BY 

,THE RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL 

BART., M.P., LL.D., F.R.S. 



WITH PORTRAITS 



NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 

1904 






Printed in Great Britain. 



HXOHANGB 
BBOWN UNIV. LIBEABT 
M/»3r 9.^ , 1939 



PRINTED BV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LI^aTED, 
LONDON AND BBCCLES. 






INTRODUCTION. 



"How little," exclaims Mr. Birrell, in his recent 
memoir of William Hazlitt, " how little is it we know 
about the character of a dead man we never saw!" 
Little enough, as a rule, of the performer, even when 
the part he has played has been historical ; still less 
when his natural gifts have not availed to raise him 
to distinction, or circumstances refused him a place 
above the common run of his kind. Nevertheless it 
is given to certain men of subordinate importance in 
their day so to reveal themselves in correspondence 
or, more rarely, in their journals, as to leave upon 
him who, in after years, shall stir the venerable store 
and decipher the faded pages, an impression of their 
personality so vivid as to convince him of the 
writer's character and motives. 

Of such was Thomas Creevey, sometime member 
of Parliament for Thetford, and afterwards for Appleby 
— both of them pocket boroughs of the most unre- 
generate type. Born in Liverpool in March, 1768, he 
was the son of William Creevey, merchant of that 
city, and certain allusions in his correspondence seem 
to show that his parents were natives of Ireland. But 
Creevey himself seems to have been pretty much in 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

the dark as to his own pedigree. He formed an early 
and intimate friendship with Dr. J. Currie, a dis- 
tinguished physician and leading citizen of Liverpool,* 
who writes as follows in 1803 : — 

" Well, I know all about your birth and parentage. 
You came originally from Galloway in Scotland, and 
settled on the Irish coast right opposite, within sight 
of the sweet country you had left — you are of an 
ancient Scottish family in that county, now nearly 
extinct (except that it revives in your own person) 
to whom belonged the castle and manor of Castle 
Creevey near Glenluce (with which I am perfectly 
acquainted) now in the family of Lord Selkirk, I 
believe. Then your grandfather who was an officer 
in the army, if not born was certainly begotten in 
Scotland, and as far as Mrs. Eaton and I can ascertain 
the fact, in the very town of Dumfries — but that we 
won't be sure of. — And to come to the point, it would 
not be at all surprising if in the last 500 years some 
of our ancestors had joined issue together, and if our 
great-grandfathers, ten or twenty times removed, had 
been one and the same person ! " 

Now in one respect, at least, the learned doctor's 
statements herein will not bear examination. Castle 
Creavie, indeed, is in Galloway; but it is not near 
Glenluce, which is in Wigtownshire (Western Gallo- 
way), and it never belonged to the family of Lord 
Selkirk. It is a farm in Rerwick parish, in the 
Stewartry of Kircudbright (Eastern Galloway), 
distant fully fifty miles from Glenluce, and has 
been owned successively by different families; but 
not since 1646, at least, by any of the name of 
Creevey or Creavie. Neither is there, nor has there 

* James Currie, M.D. [1756-1805], son of a Scottish minister, 
emigrated to Virginia in 177 1, Avhere he studied medicine. Returning 
to Great Britain in 1777, he continued his studies at Edinburgh 
University, and ultimately became the chief exponent of the cold-water 
cure, and the advocate of thermometrical observations in fever. 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

been, any castle there, although the prefix doubtless 
was derived from a couple of pre-historic hill forts, 
of which the mounds remain on the north and east of 
the present farmhouse.* 

This Thomas Creevey was educated at a grammar 
school at Hackney — " old School Lane," he calls it — 
and at Queens College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. 
as seventh wrangler in 1789, and M.A. in 1792. On 
9th November, 1789, he was admitted student of the 
Inner Temple, and on 7th November, 1791, of Gray's 
Inn; being called to the Bar on 27th June, 1794. The 
voluminous correspondence and fragmentary journals 
left by him afford no explanation of how he obtained 
in 1802 the Duke of Norfolk's nomination for the 
snug little borough of Thetford with its thirty-one 
docile electors. That year was notable for another 
important event in his life, namely, his marriage with 
the widow of William Ord, Esq., of Fenham, New- 
minster Abbey, and Whitfield. This lady, who was 
the daughter of Charles Brandling, Esq., of Gosforth 
House, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, was possessed 
of comfortable, if not of considerable, means. To 
her first husband she had borne two sons and four 
daughters ; and one of these daughters, Elizabeth Ord, 
who never married, became her step-father's confidante 
and favourite correspondent. After their mother's 
death in 18 18, the Miss Ords lived at Rivenhall in 
Essex, and in Cheltenham ; and Miss Elizabeth corre- 
sponded regularly with Mr. Creevey, whose industry 
and volubility in response are truly amazing. A large 
proportion of the following pages are filled with 
extracts from these letters — extracts which probably 

* Land and their Owners i7i Galloivay^ by P. H. McKerlie, 
vol. V. p. 113. 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

do not amount to more than one-fiftieth of the whole. 
As time went on, Mr. Creevey conceived the idea of 
compiling a history of his own times, and used to tell 
Miss Elizabeth Ord to keep his letters, " for," said he, 
" in future times the Creevey Papers may form a 
curious collection." 

In regard to the papers as a whole. Miss Ord faith- 
fully observed her step-father's instructions. They 
have been admirably kept; many of them having 
been copied out in her clear, pretty handwriting — an 
immense advantage to the present editor, for Mr. 
Creevey's penmanship was simply execrable. It is 
characteristic of such matters that some of the events 
and episodes of which Creevey thought it most 
important to leave a detailed record, have parted with 
much of their moment, having received full explana- 
tion and description from other sources. What the 
modern reader is most likely to enjoy are the gossip 
of a bygone day, side-lights on society of the late 
Georgian era, and traits and illustrations of persons 
who figured prominently on the stage of public life. 
Creevey was admirably equipped as a purveyor of 
such information. His activity must have been as 
ceaseless as his curiosity was insatiable. His was 
one of those active intellects not of the first, nor even 
of the second, order, amassing details of the busy life 
in which they are cast, recording traits and chronicling 
episodes whereon the greater actors have no attention 
to bestow or time to dwell, and revealing his private 
motives and animosities with an almost Pepysian 
frankness. A very poor man most of his days, for 
with his wife Creevey lost whatever income she 
brought to him, he must have had social and conver- 
sational powers of no mean order to attract the 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

endless hospitality of which he was the subject, and 
which he was wholly unable to return. The repository 
of innumerable confidences from persons of both sexes, 
it must be confessed that he was not always very 
scrupulous in observing the seal of secrecy, neither 
has it appeared expedient, even at this distance of 
time, to dispense with a severe system of selection in 
dealing with his chroniqtie scandaleuse. 

It is natural to compare a collection such as this 
with the well-known " Croker Papers " which have 
already seen the light, and indeed they cover much 
the same ground, but from an opposite point of view. 
John Wilson Croker was a Tory, and his party were 
in office during the long, weary years when it was 
the lot of Thomas Creevey and his friends to gnash 
their teeth in opposition. The two men probably 
were of not unequal calibre. Creevey had not the 
literary turn of Croker ; but it was opportunity alone 
which prevented him becoming at least as distin- 
guished a legislator as the other; and, had the fortune 
and position of parties been reversed, Creevey would, 
in all likelihood, have attained to higher office than 
Croker ever filled. He had been but four years in 
Parliament when, after Pitt's death, the brief " All-the- 
Talents " Ministry was formed, and in this he received 
the office of Secretary to the Board of Control. By 
the time his party came into power again, Creevey 
was sixty-two, and had lost his seat ; but his services 
received instant recognition by his appointment, 
despite his age, first to the Treasurership of the 
Ordnance, and afterwards to that of Greenwich 
Hospital. 

If any evidence were wanting as to the disunion 
and its causes, which sapped the efficacy of the Whig 



X INTRODUCTION. 

opposition during the first thirty years of the nine- 
teenth century, it is amply forthcoming in Creevey's 
letters, and nobody can complain that it is not ex- 
pressed in forcible enough language. It must ever be 
a source of wonder to the student of history how the 
Tory Government weathered the stress and storm of 
those years. For twenty years a mighty war, taxing 
to the utmost the physical resources of a popula- 
tion not exceeding fifteen millions, was sustained 
at the cost of a crushing increment of debt. The fall 
in prices suddenly ensuing upon the peace of 1815, 
plunged the whole agricultural community into dire 
distress, and was accompanied by an almost total 
cessation of continental demand for British manufac- 
tures, arising from the utter loss of buying power in 
foreign markets, which involved the artisan population 
in the terrible distress. Nor was this all, though 
well it might be reckoned enough to bring about the 
fall of any administration. Ministers groaned under 
the affliction of a mad King and a deplorable Regent. 
The whole heart of the nation was stirred against 
the Administration by reason of the part assigned 
to Ministers in the proceedings against Queen 
Caroline. How was it that they survived a single 
session ? 

The answer may be clearly read in Creevey's 
correspondence. First, in regard to the war, the 
people were practically of one jfnind — to see it through. 
It has ever been so in our country, and please God it 
ever shall be so ! Once let the drums beat the point 
of war, and they rouse an echo in British hearts 
which dies not away till the thing has been carried to 
a finish. Men will not listen to those counsellors 
who would have them believe that the policy which 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

led to war was foolish or wrong — nay, they will not 
pause to weigh even the justice of the cause. Of all 
sentiments, patriotism is perhaps one of those least 
amenable to reason — the least calculating ; those that 
hesitate in the crisis, still more those who carp and 
thwart, become by force of circumstance and quite apart 
from their own honesty of opinion, the anti-national 
party. We have seen the same in every great war 
that it has been the lot of England to wage ; and it is 
the knowledge of this and the feeling that lies deepest 
in every Briton's heart, that disorganises opposition 
at such times. The extreme men move resolutions 
which the moderate men will not support ; then, when 
the moderates agree upon a line of action, the others 
stand resentfully aloof Perhaps the most interesting 
and instructive political passages in these papers are 
those in which are revealed the most secret counsels 
of the opposition, and the course of action which 
repeatedly saved Lord Liverpool's administration 
from shipwreck. 

References to Thomas Creevey in the published 
writings of his contemporaries are few, and for the 
most part slight. The fullest notice I have en- 
countered is in some passages in the Journal of 
Charles Greville. 

Writing in 1829, he has the following: — 

" Old Creevey is rather an extraordinary character. 
I know nothing of the early part of his history, but I 
believe he was an attorney or barrister ; he married a 
widow, who died a few years ago ; she had something, 
he nothing ; he got into Parliament, belonged to the 
Whigs, displayed a good deal of shrewdness and 
humour, and was for some time very troublesome to 
the Tory Government by continually attacking abuses. 
After some time he lost his seat, and went to live at 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

Brussels, where he became intimate with the Duke of 
Wellington. Then his wife died, upon which event he . 
was thrown upon the world with about ;^20o a year or 
less ; no home, few connections, a great many acquaint- 
ances, a good constitution and extraordinary spirits. 
He possesses nothing but his clothes ; no property of 
any sort ; he leads a vagrant life, visiting a number of 
people who are delighted to have him, and sometimes 
roving about to various places, as fancy happens to 
direct, and staying till he has spent what money he 
has in his pocket. He has no servant, no home, no 
creditors ; he buys everything as he wants it at the 
place he is at ; he has no ties upon him, and has 
his time entirely at his own disposal and that of his 
friends. He is certainly a living proof that a man 
may be perfectly happy and exceedingly poor, or 
rather without riches, for he suffers none of the priva- 
tions of poverty and enjoys many of the advantages 
of wealth. I think he is the only man I know in 
society who possesses nothing."* 

Again in 1838: — 

"Feb. 20th. — I made no allusion to the death of 
Creevey at the time it took place, about a fortnight 
ago, having said something about him elsewhere. 
Since that period he had got into a more settled way 
of life. He was appointed to one of the Ordnance 
offices by Lord Grey, and subsequently by Lord Mel- 
bourne to the Treasurership of Greenwich Hospital, 
with a salary of ;^6oo a year and a house. As he died 
very suddenly, and none of his connexions were at 
hand. Lord Sefton sent to his lodgings and (in con- 
junction with Vizard the solicitor) caused all his papers 
to be sealed up. It was found that he had left a 
woman who had lived with him for four years as his 
mistress, his sole executrix and residuary legatee (the 
value of which was very small, not more than ^^300 
or ^^"400), and to all the papers which he had left behind 
him. These last are exceedingly valuable, for he had 
kept a copious diary for thirty-six years, had preserved 
all his own and Mrs. Creevey's letters, and copies or 

* Grcville Memoirs^ i. 235. 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

originals of a vast miscellaneous correspondence. The 
only person who is acquainted with the contents 
of these papers is his daughter-in-law, whom he had 
frequently employed to copy papers for him, and she 
knows how much there is of delicate and interesting 
matter, the publication of which would be painful and 
embarrassing to many people now alive, and make 
very inconvenient and premature revelations upon 
private and confidential matters. . . . Then there is 
Creevey's own correspondence with various people," 
especially with Brougham, which evidently contains 
thmgs which Brougham is anxious to suppress, for he 
has taken pains to prevent the papers from falling into 
the hands of any person likely to publish them, and 
has urged Vizard to get possession of them either by 
persuasion, or purchase, or both. In point of fact, they 
are now in Vizard's hands, and it is intended by him 
and Brougham, probably with the concurrence of 
others, to buy them of Creevey's mistress ; though who 
is to become the owner of the documents, or what the 
stipulated price, and what their contemplated destina- 
tion, I do not know. The most extraordinary part of 
the affair is that the woman has behaved with the 
utmost delicacy and propriety, has shown no mer- 

.cenary disposition, but expressed her desire to be 
guided by the wishes and opinions of Creevey's 
friends and connexions, and to concur in whatever 
measures may be thought best by th-em with reference 
to the character of Creevey, and the interests and feel- 
ings of those who might be affected by the contents 
of the papers. Here is a strange situation in which ' 
to find a rectitude of conduct, a moral sentiment, a 
grateful and disinterested liberality, which would do 
honour tO,,thelnghes^ the most careful cultiva- 

■"troTTand the strictest principle. It would be a hundred 
to one against any individual in the ordinary ranks of 
society and of average good character acting with 
such entire absence of selfishness, and I cannot help 
being struck with the contrast between the motives 
and disposition of those who want to get hold of these 
papers, and of this poor woman who is ready to give 
them up. They — well knowing that in the present 
thirst for the sort of information Creevey's journals 
and correspondence contain, a very large sum might 

b 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

be obtained for them — are endeavouring to drive the 
best bargain they can with her for their own particular 
ends, while she puts her whole confidence in them, 
and only wants to do what they tell her she ought to 
do under the circumstances of the case." 

A couple of years later, Greville has a further 
reference to Creevey. 

" i2//f March, 1840. — Her Majesty went out last 
night to the Ancient Concert (which she particularly 
dislikes), so I got Melbourne to dine with me, and he 
stayed talking till 12 o'clock. . . . He expressed his 
surprise that anybody should write a journal. . . . 
He talked of Creevey's journal, and of that which 
Dover is supposed to have left behind him. . . . He 
said Creevey had been very shrewd, but exceedingly 
bitter and malignant." 

Mrs Blackett Ord, of Whitfield, whose husband 
was the grandson of Mr. Creevey's eldest step- 
daughter, Anne, by her husband, Lieut. -Colonel 
Hamilton, having entrusted to me the task of ex- 
amining these papers, and preparing for the press 
such parts of them as should seem worthy of pub- 
lication, I have endeavoured to let Mr. Creevey tell 
his own story as much as possible, connecting the 
extracts only by such explanatory paragraphs as may 
serve to refresh the memory of the reader. The 
"copious diary " referred to by Charles Greville has 
not come into my hands with the letters. If it ever 
existed in fact. Lord Brougham probably succeeded 
in his attempt to get hold of it, for it is only brief and 
broken periods that are covered by anything of that 
kind in Creevey's handwriting. 

In respect to orthography, I have thought it better 
to retain the characteristic archaisms of the period, 



\ 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

such as "chuse," " compleatly," and "politicks." 
Misspellings of proper names, such as "Wyndham" 
for " Windham," I have altered for the sake of 
identification, and ordinary slips in spelling have also 
been rectified. Words and sentences enclosed in 
marks of parentheses ( ) stand so in the original; 
those added by myself to supplement the meaning 
will be found in square brackets [ ]. 

HERBERT MAXWELL. 

MONREITH, 1903. 



NICKNAMES USED BY MR. CREEVEY TO 
DESIGNATE SUNDRY PERSONAGES. 



Atfy 



Arch-fiend, The 
Barney . 

Beau, The 
Beelzebub 



Billy, Old 
Billy, Our 
Billy Russell . 

Bogey 

Bruffam . 

Calibre, Old or Lord 

CJieerful Charlie 
Ciss . 



Chinch . 
Cole, Mrs. 



Lord Arthur Hill, 2nd son of 2nd Marquess 

of Downshire, and afterwards succeeded 

his mother as Lord Sandys. 
See Beelzebub, 
1 2th Duke of Norfolk. See also Twitch 

and Scroop. 
The Duke of Wellington. 
Henry, ist Lord Brougham and Vaux. 

See also Bruffam, The Arch-fiend, and 

Wicked-shifts. 
4th Earl Fitzwilliam. 
William IV. 
Lord William Russell, brother of 5 th Duke 

of Bedford. 
Lord Grenville. 
See Beelzebub. 
Mr. Western, M.P., created Lord Western 

in 1833. 
5th Duke of Rutland. 
Lady Cecilia Buggin, daughter of the 2nd 

Earl of Arran and widow of Sir George 

Buggin, married in 1826 to H.R.H. 

Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, 

and was created Duchess of Inverness 

in 1840. 
Lord Althorp. 
Mr. Tierney. 



NICKNAMES USED BY MR. CREEVEY. 



XVI 1 



Cole, Young 



Comical Bob 

Ciipid 

Dear Eddard 
Denny 
Doctor, The 

Fergy . 
Frog, The 
Frog, Young 
Frothy . 
Gooserump 
Jack the Painter 

Jaffa 
Jenky 

Jockey, The 
King Jog 

King Tom 



Madagascar . 
Merryman, The 
Mouldy . 
Mrs. P. . 
Mull . 

Niffy-naffy 

Og or Ogg 

Old Nobs 

Old Sally or Dow. 

Sally 
Old Stiff-rump or 

The Squire 
Pet, The . 
P., Young 
Pie and Thimble 



Hon. James Abercromby, elected Speaker 

in 1835 and created Lord Dunfermline 

in 1839. 
Lord Robert Spenceiv brother of the 3rd 

Duke of Marlborough. ^ 
Viscount Palmerston. 
Hon. Robert Edward Petre. 
Mr. Denison of Denbies. 
Right Hon. Henry Addington, created 

Viscount Sidmouth in 1805. 
General Ronald Ferguson of Raith. 
King William I. of Holland. 
The Prince of Orange. 
Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P. 
The 6th Earl of Carlisle. 
Right Hon. T. Spring Rice, created Lord 

Monteagle in 1839. 
General Sir Robert Wilson. 
Lord Liverpool. 
The nth Duke of Norfolk. 
J. G. Lambton of Lambton, afterwards 

Earl of Durham. 
Thomas Coke of Holkham, afterwards 

Earl of Leicester. 
Lady Holland. 
Mr. Canning. 
Lord Bexley. 

The Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline). 
Lord Molyneux, son of the 3rd Earl of 

Sefton. 
Earl of Darlington, afterwards ist Duke of 

Cleveland. 
The 2nd Lord Kensington. 
George IH. 

f Mary Amelia, Marchioness of Salisbury. 

) Mr. Western, M. P., afterwards Lord 
f Western. 

3rd Earl of Sefton. 

Princess Charlotte of Wales. 

Lord John Russell. 



xviii NICKNAMES USED BY MR. CREEVEY. 



Pop^ The • 

Prinney . 
Punch . 
Roscius , , , 

Sally . . 

Sallyy Old or Dow. 

Scroop 

Slice 

Snip 



Snipe 
Snoutch . 
Squire, T/ie, or 

Stiff-rump 
Suss 

Spinning Jeniiy 
Taffy . . 
Twitch . 
Vanderjioot, Old 
Vestmus 
Vic, Little 
Wicked-shifts . 



Old\ 



Countess of Darlington, afterwards Duchess 

of Cleveland. 
The Prince of Wales (George IV.). 
Charles Greville, Clerk of the Council. 
Lord Henry Petty, afterwards 3rd Marquess 

of Lansdowne. 
Sarah, Countess of Jersey. 
Mary Amelia, Marchioness of Salisbury. 
The 1 2th Duke of Norfolk. 
H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. 
Right Hon. Thomas Robinson, successively 

Viscount Goderich and Earl of Ripon 
Princess Lieven. 
Right Hon. George Ponsonby. 
Mr. Western, M.P., afterwards Lord 

Western. 
H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex. 
Sir Robert Peel. 
Lord Dinorbin. 
The 1 2 th Duke of Norfolk. 
William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham. 
Hon. Douglas Kinnaird. 
Queen Victoria. 
See Beelzehih. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction ... ... ... ... ... ... v 

Nicknames used by Mr. Creevey ... ... ... xvi 

List of Illustrations ... ... ... ... ... xxvii 



CHAPTER I. 

1793-1804. 

Creevey enters Parliament — Paris under the Consulate — Actors 
in the Revolution — The Addington Ministry — Sir John 
Moore — ^War — The return of Pitt — Per mare et terras — 
The Front Bench — Laudator temporis adi — Pitt and Fox 
as allies — The bonds of party — The hope of the Whigs — 
Threats of invasion — The Irish difficulty 1-31 

CHAPTER II. 

1805. 

Melville's disgrace — The campaign against jobs — The Radicals 
make the pace — The Sheridans — Romilly declines Parlia- 
ment— Irish affairs — Ulm and Austerlitz 32-45 

CHAPTER III. 

1805. 

The Heir Apparent — Life at the Pavilion — Sheridan — Sheridan's 
marriage — Frolics at Brighton — Warren Hastings — Lord 
Thurlow — The Duke of York— Society at Brighton — Even- 
ings at the Pavilion — Death of Nelson — The Prince of 
Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert 46-73 



XX CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 
I 806-1 808. 

PAGE 

" All the Talents " — Creevey in office — Fox's last illness — 
Sheridan jibs — High living — The Portland Administration 
— Alliance with Spain — The Convention of Cintra — Mr. 
Whitbread unbosoms himself ... 74-92 



CHAPTER V. 
1809. 

Walcheren — Castlereagh's duel with Canning — Whitbread on the 
situation — The passage of the Douro — Sir Arthur Wellesley 
remonstrates — Mr. Whitbread explains — Journal ... 93-116 

CHAPTER VI. 
1810. 

The sentiments of Brougham — Difficulties of the Opposition — 
Debate on the Address — Divided counsels — The Walcheren 
enquiry — Wellington and the Common Council — Defeat 
of the Government — A sailor's opinion of Sir Richard 
Strachan ; 1 17-134 

CHAPTER VII. 

1811. 

Cabinet making — Whitbread's proposals — The prospect of office 
— Creevey's conditions — The Prince's coolness to the Whigs 
— Journal — The Canningites scattered 135-152 

CHAPTER VIII. 

1812. 

Parliament is dissolved — Who shall be Premier? — Prolonged 
suspense — Lord Wellesley tries his hand — Lord Grey stands 
aloof — Lord Liverpool takes office— Creevey stands for Liver- 
pool — Re-elected for Thetford — Defeated at Liverpool — 
Visit to Knowsley ... IS3-I74 



CONTENTS. XXI 

CHAPTER IX. 

1813-1814. 

PAGE 

The Regent's domestic affairs — Brougham on the war-path — 
Brougham's opinion of Whitbread — Partisans; — Plot and 
counter-plot — Napoleon abdicates — Tales of the town — The 
peace — Brougham without a seat — The Emperor of Russia 
— Princess Charlotte of Wales — The Princess of Wales 
throws over her advisers — Lord Cochrane's case ... 175-204 

CHAPTER X. 

1814-1815. 

Brougham on the situation — The pinch of the property-tax— The 
Hundred Days — Brussels in 1815 — The shadow of war — 
Napoleon's last stakes — Tidings from the frontier — Arrival 
of Wellington — Confusion in Brussels — The Iron Duke — 
The Duchess of Richmond's ball — The eve of Waterloo — 
The eighteenth of June — Conflicting rumours — Victory — 
Conversation with the Duke — Close of the campaign ... 205-239 



CHAPTER XI. 

1815-1816. 

Death of Whitbread — Misfortunes of the Opposition — The duke- 
dom of Norfolk — Disorganised Whigs — Brougham startles 
his friends — Who shall lead the Whigs ? — Brougham's views 
— A lady's letter — A dispirited Radical—" You must come 
over!" 240-260 



CHAPTER XII. 
1817-1818. 

From Lord Holland — Mr. Tierney chosen leader — Napoleon at 
St. Helena — The Duke of Kent's confidences — Lord Kin- 
naird's affair — Mr. Creevey dislodged from Thetford — 
Journal — Sir Hudson Lowe — Objections to Tierney ... 261-291 



XXll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 
1819-1820. 

PAGE 

Lord Holland upon the situation — Death of George III. — Queen 
Caroline reappears — Dissension in the Opposition — Does 
Brougham run straight? — The question of the Liturgy- 
Opinion at Knowsley — Opening of the trial— Proceedings in 
the Lords — The case for the Crown — Unfavourable evidence 
— Louise Demont — The Solicitor-General sums up — The 
divorce clause abandoned — Brougham opens the defence — 
Ministers lose ground — The Duke of Norfolk's opinion — 
Adjournment of the Commons — Brougham's tactics — Mr. 
Denman sums up — Nearing the end — What will be the 
majority ? — The division — The Bill • abandoned — The pro- 
rogation 292-342 

CHAPTER XIV. 

1821. 

Queen Caroline's establishment — The summary prorogation— 
The pretender Olivia — Lady Holland at home — Brougham 
fulfils a pledge — Dinner with the Queen — Lord Holland's 
apology — ^The Queen excluded from the Abbey — The north 
to be roused — The Queen's death — Suspicions about 
Brougham's honesty — An honourable executor — Lord 
Lauderdale — George IV. in Ireland — End of the Royal 
visit 343-374 

CHAPTER XV. 

1822. 

Creevey's activity — In the Whig camp — "A Voice from St. 
Helena " — The frequency of suicide — Castlereagh's death — 
George IV. in Scotland — The Duke of Sussex — Canning 
assumes the lead — Lord Thanet on the situation — Can- 
ning's voice, Castlereagh's hand — Mr. Cobbett's views — 
Knowsley revisited 375-400 

CHAPTER XVI. . 

1823-1824. 

A young lady's letters — Criticism upon Canning — Two very 
different dukes — The Duke of Buckingham—Social 
scheming — Tittle-tattle — At Crockford's — Royal Ascot — • 
Newmarket A visit to Lambton — Captain FitzClarence's 
opinions 401-425 



CONTENTS. XXIU 

CHAPTER XVII. 
1825-1826. 

PAGE 

Two Scottish divines — The birth of railways — Creevey's seat in 
jeopardy — Lambton revisited — Creevey as an author — Lady 
Grey's views — Lord J. Russell on Reform — Canning and the 
Opposition — The Corn Laws 436-444 

CHAPTER XVIIL 

1827. 

Liverpool's last illness — Brougham receives a challenge — Creevey 
enjoys his freedom — ^A Cabinet crisis — Mischievous times — 
Brougham in the thick of it — Coalition — Creevey's objec- 
tions — ^Wellington and Grey — Death of Canning — Grey 
and Brougham — Lowther Castle — The Goderich Ministry 
— Party politics in the north — The aifair of Navarino 445-476 

CHAPTER XIX. 

1827-1828. 

Return to Croxteth — Rumours of war — Lord Grey's speculations 
— Sefton and Brougham — What is Brougham after? — General 
distress in the country — 'A quarrel — Overtures to the Whigs 
— -Rival marquesses — The Duke of Sussex and the Whigs — 
Lord Hill puts down his foot— Huskisson resigns — CoUing- 
wood's memoirs — Petworth — Creevey out in the cold — The 
Clare election ... 477-509 

CHAPTER XX. 

1828. 

An obsequious cicerone — The Bessborough estates — Lord 
Hutchinson — Power of Kilfane — Impressions of Ireland- 
Lord Donoughmore's recollections — Irish society— Dan 
O'Connell — The Tighes of Woodstock— Creevey's indiscre- 
tion — The Viceregal Lodge — Carton ... 510-534 

CHAPTER XXI. 

1829. 

Catholic emancipation — The Garth scandal — A party at Lady 
Sefton's — Intrigues in the Opposition — First trip on the 
railway— A spendthrift peer ... ... ... ... 535-547 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXII. 
1830-1831. 

PAGE 

Brougham's literary schemes — Lord Douro's engagement — 
Death of George IV. — Death of Huskisson — Lord Grey's 
administration — A party in Downing Street— Oueen Ade- 
laide's Drawing-room — The first draft of Reform — Stirring 
times — The second reading carried — The Bill in Committee 
— Creevey returns to Parliament — The Prime Minister — 
Influenza — The race for honours — Coronation gossip — The 
Reform agitation 548-581 

CHAPTER XXIIL 

1832-1833. 

The prospects of the Bill — A party at Lady Grey's — Lord Grey 
resigns — The Reform Bill passed — The end of the old order 
— The Reformed Parliament — Affairs in Arlington Street — 
Miss Berry's dinner-party — Roscoe as historian — King 
William's levee 582-602 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

1833. 

The Court at Windsor — Private political history — Lord Hol- 
land's ability — Gossip — ^Joseph Parkes 603-613 

CHAPTER XXV. 

1834. 

Creevey's office threatened — Rogers's dinner-party — Competition 
for office — Oxford declines Talleyrand — Creevey's new post 
— Anecdote about Lord Grey — Brougham blamed for the 
crisis — Lord Grey's opinion of Brougham — A breeze with 
Brougham — The Road at its prime— Lord Grey in retire- 
ment — Qvertures to Lord Howick — Melbourne's dismissal — 
Character of Lord Sefton — Visit at Howick — At Holland 
House again 614-645 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

I 835-1 836. 

Creevey as an onlooker — Lady Grey at home — " Bear " Ellice — 
Action against Lord Melbourne — Cassiobury — Death of 
Charles X 646-658 



CONTENTS. XXV 

CHAPTER XXVIL, AND Last. 
1837-1838. 

I'AGE 

Death of Mrs. Fitzherbert— and of William IV. — The young 
Queen — Brighton revisited — The Marquess Wellesley— 
Dinner with the Duke of Sussex — Holkham — Lady Charlotte 
Bury's book — " Where shall I go next ? " 659-678 

Index 679 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Thomas Creevey ... ... ... ... F?-ontispicce 

From a Water-colour Drawitig, in the possession of Miss 
Elizabeth Blackett Ord, at B^-oivnsidey Cumberland 

TO FACE PAGE 

Mrs. Fitzherbert ... ... ... ... ... 50 

From the Picture by JoHN RussELL, R.A., ?'« the pos- 
sessiofi of Mr. Basil Fitzherbert^ at Swinnerion Hall, 
Staffordshire 

Lord Thurlow ... ... ... ... ... 60 

From the Picture by Thomas Phillips, R.A,, in the 
Motional Portrait Gallery 

Admiral Sir Graham Moore ... ... ... .... 90 

From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in 
the National Portrait Gallery 

R. Brinsley Sheridan ... ... ... ... 146 

From a Picture ^k JoHN HOPPNER, R.A., in the possessioti 
of George Harland Peck^ Esq. 

Henry Brougham in Early Life ... ... ... 172 

From the Picttire by James Lonsdale, in the National 
Portrait Gallery 

Samuel Whitbread ... ... ... ... ... 242 

From an Engraving by S. W. Reynolds, after ^. Opie, R.A. 

Sir Samuel Romilly ... ... ... ... ... 290 

From the Picttire by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., iti 
the National Portrait Gallery 

Sarah, Countess of Jersey ... ... ... ... 296 

Froi?i a Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., iiithe 
possession of the Earl of Jersey. 



XXVIU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

TO FACE PAGE 

Mrs. Creevey ... ... ... ... ... ... 342 

From a Picture in the possessioji of Airs. Blackett Ord, 
Whitfield, Northumberland 

Viscount Castlereagh ... ... ... ... 384 

Fj-om the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, I'.R.A., in 
the National Portrait Gallery 

Joseph Hume ... ... ... ... ... ... 416 

F}'07n the Mezzotint by T. HoDGETTS, after J. Graham 

The Third Marquess of Lansdowne ... ... ... 458 

From the Picture by H. Walton, in the National Portrait 
Gallery 

George Canning ... ... ... ... ... 464 

From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., at 
Christ Chtirch, Oxford 

John Allen ... ... ... ... ... ... 498 

From the Picture by SlR Edwin Landseer, R.A., in the 
National Portrait Gallery 

Daniel O'Connell, M.P. ... ... ... ... 536 

Frovi the Picture by B. Mulrenin, R.H.A., in the 
National Poiirait Gallery 

Earl Grey ... ... ... ... ... ... 55S 

F7-oi}i the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in 
the National Portrait Gallery 

The Countess Grey and two Children ... ... 586 

From the Mezzotint by Samuel COUSINS, R.A., after Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. 

Lady Holland... ... ... ... ... ... 598 

Fivm an Engraving by S. W. Reynolds, after C. R. 
Leslie, R.A. 

Viscount Melbourne ... ... ... ... ... 668 

Frofn the Picture by SiR Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., iti 
the National Portrait Gallery 



THE CREEVEY PAPERS. 



CHAPTER I. 

1 793-1 804. 

The earliest letter preserved in the huge mass of Mr. 
Creevey's correspondence is a very brief one ; but it 
strikes the note which carried dismay and indignation 
into every court in Europe, and was the prelude to 
twenty years of widespread war. 

Hon. Charles Grey, M.P. [afterwards 2nd Earl Greji], to 

Mrs, Ord. 

"24th Jan., 1793. 

" Dear Mrs. Ord, 

" I have only a moment before the post goes 
out. . . . An account is come that the King of France 
was executed on Monday morning. Everything in 
Paris bore the appearance of another tumult and 
massacre. Bad as I am thought, I cannot express the 
horror I feel at this atrocity. 

" Yours affectionately, 

"C. Grey. 

" War is certain, and — God grant we may not all 
lament the consequences of it ! " 

There are few letters during the remaining years 
of the eighteenth century referring to anything except 



2 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

private affairs of little interest. Dr. J. Currie of 
Liverpool wrote pretty regularly to Mr. Creevey, 
who seems to have been reading for the Bar at this 
time. 

Dr, Currie to Thomas Creevey. 

"Liverpool, 30th Dec, 1795. 

"... I once thought you a modest fellow — now I 
laugh at the very idea of it. Upon my soul, Creevey, 
it was all a damned hum. What with your election 
songs and your rompings — what with your carousings 
with the men and your bamboozlings with the women, 
you are a most complete hand indeed. Widow, wife, 
or maid, it is all one to you. ... If you go on in this 
way, and keep out of Doctors Commons, the Lord 
knows what you may rise to. . . ." 

" 17th Dec, 1798. 

"... I am, I assure you, deeply concerned to hear 
that you think so poorly of Dr. Tennant's health ; 
and perfectly disturbed to think that he has had any 
trouble about my thermometers.* The truth is I 
wished to avail myself of his intuitive skill in framing 
an instrument free of all exception for taking heat in 
contagious diseases where approach is hazardous. 
But since he left us ... I have so far succeeded in 
constructing a sensible [? sensitive] instrument with 
Six's iron index as to answer my purpose. ... I have 
done very little but read Voltaire since I saw you. 
He is an exquisite fellow. One thing in him is 
peculiarly striking — his clear knowledge of the limits 
of the human understanding. He pursues his game 
as far as the scent carries him, but no further. Where 
this fails, he turns off with a jest, that marks distinctly 
where a wise man ought to stop. . . . You know, 
my dear fellow, I owe the delight of reading him to 
you." 

* The most enduring part of Dr. Currie's work as a physician 
consists in the advance he made in the use of the thermometer in 
fevers. 



1793-1804.] CREEVEY ENTERS PARLIAMENT. 3 

"20th Jan., i8oi. 

"... I envy you the company you keep. When 
you tell me of meeting Erskine, Parr and Mackintosh 
familiarly, I sigh at m}^ allotment in this corner of 
the Island, It is impossible not to rust here, even if 
one had talents of a better kind. In London, and 
perhaps there only, practice and exercise keep men 
polished and bright. ... So you are become an 
intimate friend of Lady Oxford, My dear Creevey — 
these women — these beautiful women — are the devil's 
most powerful temptation — but I yvill not moralize, 
on paper at least. . . ." 

In 1802 Mr. Creevey was returned to Parliament 
as member for Thetford, a pocket borough in the gift 
of the Duke of Norfolk. How he obtained this nomi- 
nation there is no evidence to show ; but he was an 
enthusiastic Whig of the advanced type which was 
about to reject that time-worn title, and adopt the 
more expressive one of Radical. Indeed, the animosity 
of this section against the old Whigs, under the lead 
of Lord Grenville, was almost as intense as it was 
against the Tories under Pitt 

Sir Francis Burdett, M.P., to Mr. Creevey, M.P. 

"Piccadilly, August i8th, 1802. 

" My dear Creevey, 

" I have scarcely time to turn round,'but will 
not defer sending a line in answer to your very kind 
letter — as I am entirely of your opinion in every 
point. I look upon your advice as excellent, and 
intend consequently to follow it. You know by this 
time the Petition is taken out of my hands, in a 
manner most flattering and honourable. The conduct 
of the Sheriffs I believe quite unprecedented, but 
whether they will be punished, protected or rewarded 
exceeds my sagacity to foretell, perhaps both the latter. 

" I regard the issue of this contest exactly in the 
same light as you do — a subject of great triumph and 
not of mortification. My friend is compleatly satisfied. 



4 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

I have done my duty and the Public acknowledge it — 
surely this is sufficient to satisfy the ambition of an 
honest man. 

" I, however, cannot help envying you your happi- 
ness and comfort, and wish most heartily 1 was of the 
party. You cannot think how friendly Ord was nor 
how much I feel obliged to him — we used his house, 
but I hope not injure it. 

" Sherry is quite grown loving again ; he came 
here yesterday with all sorts of [illegible] from the 
Prince, Mrs. Fitzherbert, &c., &c. ; it is a year and half, 
I believe before this Election, since we almost spoke. 
Mrs. Sheridan came one day on the Hastings, and was 
much delighted and entertained at being hailed by the 
multitude as Mrs. Burdett. . . . 

" Yours sincerely, 

" F. Burdett." 

Mr. Creevey, M.P., to Dr. Currie. 

" Great Cumberland Place, 8th Nov., 1802. 

". . . The Grenvilles are in great spirits; the 
Morjiing Post, and Morning Chronicle- too, are strongly 
suspected of being in their pay, and to-day it is 
said Tom Grenville is to be started as Speaker 
against Abbott. Great are the speculations about 
Pitt : it is asserted that he is fonder of his relations 
[the Grenvilles] than the Doctor,* but I hear of no 
authority for this opinion. I, for one, if they try their 
strength in the choice of a Speaker, tho' I detest 
Abbott, will vote for him or anybody else supported 
by Addington, in opposition to a Grenville or a Pittite. 
I am affraid of this damned Addington being bullied 
out of his pacific disposition. He will be most cursedly 
run at, and he has neither talents to command open 
coadjutors, nor sufficient skill in intriguing to acquire 
private ones. Still I think we cannot surely be pushed 
again into the field of battle. 

"Now for France — all the world has been there, 
and various is the information imported from thence. 

* The Right Hon. Henry Addington, created Viscount Sidmouth 
in 1805. He was nicknamed "the Doctor " because his father wa§ a 
physician. 



J793-1804.] PARIS UNDER THE CONSULATE. 5 

Whishaw was my first historian, and I think the worst. 
He was at Paris only a fortnight, but he travelled 
through France. I apprehend, either from a scanty 
supply of the language or of proper introductions, he 
has been merely a stage coach traveller. He has seen 
soldiers in every part of his tour, and superintending 
every department of the Government . . . and has 
returned quite scared out of his wits at the dreadful 
power and villainy of the French Government. . . . 
Romilly* is my next relator, and much more amusing. 
His private friends were the Liancourts, de la Roche- 
foucaults, &c., and he dined at different times with 
Talleyrand, Berthier, and all the other Ministers at 
their houses. Ministers, however, and statesmen are^ 
alike in all countries ; they alone are precluded from' 
telling you anything about the country in whose 
service they are, and emigrants are too insecure to 
indulge any freedom in conversation. Romilly's 
account, therefore, as one might suppose, makes his 
society of Paris the most gloomy possible. He says 
at Talleyrand's table, where you have such magni- 
ficence as was never seen before in France, the 
Master of the House, who as an exile in England 
without a guinea was the pleasantest of Men, in 
France and in the midst of his prosperity sits the 
most melancholy picture apparently of sorrow and 
despair. Romilly sat next to Fox at Talleyrand's 
dinner, and had all his conversation to himself; but 
not a word of public aff'airs — all vertu and French 
belles lettres. Romilly would not grace the court of 
Buonaparte, but left Paris with as much detestation 
of him and his Government as Whishaw, and with 
much more reason. 

"But the great lion of all upon the subject of Paris 
is Mackintosh.! He has really seen most entertaining 
things and people. He, too, dined with Ministers, 
and has held a long consultation with the Consul! 

* Samuel Romilly, K.C., entered Parliament in 1806, appointed 
Solicitor-General, and was knighted. An ardent Reformer, and father 
of the first Lord Romilly, he committed suicide in 18 18. 

t Sir James Mackintosh [1765-1832], barrister, philosopher, and 
politician. 

% Bonaparte. 



6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

upon the Norman and English laws; but his means 
of living with the active people of France has far 
exceeded that of any other English. I think his most 
valuable acquaintance must have been Madame de 
Souza, She is a Frenchwoman, was a widow, and is 
now the wife of the Portuguese ambassador. She is 
the friend and companion and confidante of Madame 
Buonaparte, and satisfied all Mackintosh's enquiries 
respecting her friend and her husband the Consul. 
Her history to Mackintosh (confirmed by Madame 
Cabarrus, late Madame Tallien) of Madame Buona- 
parte and her husband is this. — Madame Buonaparte 
is a woman nearly fifty, of singular good temper, and 
without a little of intrigue. She is a Creole, and has 
large West India possessions. On these last accounts 
it was that she was married by the Viscount Beau- 
harnois — a lively nobleman about the old Court ; and 
both in his life and since his death his wife remained 
a great favorite in Paris. 

" Immediately previous to the directorial power 
being established in 1795, the Sections all rose upon 
the Convention or Assembly, whatever it was, in 
consequence of an odious vote or decree they had 
made. At this period, no general would incur the 
risque of an unsuccessful attack upon the Sections ; 
Buonaparte alone, who was known only from having 
served at the siege of Toulon, being then in Paris, 
said if any General would lend him a coat, he would 
fight the Sections. He put his coat on ; he peppered 
the Sections with grape shot ; the establishment of the 
Directory was the consequence to them, and to him in 
return they gave the command of the army of Italy.* 
He became, therefore, the fashion, and was asked to 
meet good company, and he was asked to Tallien's 
to put him next the widow Beauharnois, that he might 
vex Hoche, who was then after her and her fortune. 
Madame Tallien did so, and the new lovers were 

* Napoleon's own report upon the suppression of the Sections 
places the responsibility of the act upon Barras, who employed him 
merely as a good artillery officer. Before being appointed to the 
command of the army in Italy, in 1796, Bonaparte was rewarded, in 
1795, for his action against the Sections by succeeding Barras in 
command of the army of the Interior. 



,1793-1804.] ACTORS IN THE REVOLUTION. 7 

married in ten days. She never was Barras' mistress ; 
Madame Cabarrus (Tallien that was) told Mackintosh 
that was calumny, for that she herself was his mistress 
at that very time.* Madame de Souza says no one but 
Madame Buonaparte could live with the Consul; he 
is subject to fits of passion, bordering upon derange- 
ment, and upon the appearance of one of these 
distempered freaks of his, he is left by all about him 
to his fate and to the effects of time. It is a service 
of great danger, even in his milder moments, to 
propose anything to him, and it is from his wife's 
forbearance in both ways that she can possibly con- 
trive to have the respect she meets with from him. 

"Every wreck of the different parties" in France for 
the last ten years that is now to be found in Paris, 
Mackintosh met and lived familiarly with — La Fayette, 
[illegible], Jean Bon Saint-Andre, Barthelemy, Camille 
Jourdan, Abbe Morelaix, Fouche, Boissy Danglas, &c., 
Sec. Tallien f no one visits of his countrymen ; his 
conversations with Mackintosh, if one had not his 
authority, surpass belief His only lamentation over 
the revolution was its want of success, and that it 
should be on account of only half measures having 
been adopted. He almost shed tears at the mention 
of Danton, whom he styled bon enfant, and as a man 
of great promise. 

"Mackintosh dined at Barthelemy's the banker — 
the brother of the ex-director — with a pleasant party. 
The ex-director was there, and next to him sat Fouche 
— now a senator — but who formerly, as Minister of 
Police, actually deported the ex-director to Cayenne. 
There was likewise a person there who|told M. he 
had seen Fouche ride full gallop to preside at some 
celebrated massacre, with a pair of human ears stuck 
one on each side of his hat.| The conversation of 

* The beautiful Madame de Tallien, previously Comtesse de 
Fontenay, was as fickle as she was frail, for she was also the mistress 
of the rich banker Ouvrard. Tallien obtained a divorce in 1802, and 
she married the Prince de Chimay. 

t Jean Lambert Tallien, one of the chief organisers and bloodiest 
agents of the Terror, leader in the overthrow of Robespierre. 

X Joseph Fouche, afterwards Due d'Otranto, had as yet but accom- 
plished half his cycle of cynical tergiversation, which brought him to 



8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

this notable assembly was as charming as the per- 
formers themselves ; it turned principally upon the 
blessings of peace and humanity, 

"All the others whom I have mentioned above 
have no connection with Fouche or Tallien, and are 
reasonable men, perfectly unrestrained in their con- 
versation, quite anti - Buonapartian, and as much 
devoted to England. To such men Fox has given 
great surprise by his conversation, as he has given 
offence to his friends here. He talks publicly of 
Liberty being asleep in France, but dead in England. 
He will be attacked in the House of Commons cer- 
tainly, and I think will find it difficult to justify himself. 
He has been damned imprudent." 

At the time of Creevey's entrance to the House of 
Commons, Pitt was in seclusion. He had retired 
from office in March, 1801, putting up the former 
Speaker, Mr. Addington, as Prime Minister and Leader 
of the House of Commons. George HI. heartily 
approved of this arrangement, although on the face 
of it were all the signs of instability. Taking Pitt 
and Addington aside at the Palace one day — " If we 
three keep together," said he, "all will go well." But 
as the months went on, Pitt chafed at his own in- 
activity and fretted at the incapacity of his nominee. 
Pitt's friends were importunate for his return; he 
himself was burning to take the reins again, but was 
too proud, perhaps too loyal to Addington, to adopt 
overt action to effect it. Moreover, Addington, who 
had been an excellent Speaker, had no suspicion of 
the poor figure he cut as head of the Government. It 
never occurred to him to take any of the numerous 
hints offered by Canning and other Tories, until the 
necessity for some change was forced upon him by 

office under Louis XVI II. after the fall of Napoleon. He died in 1820, 
a naturalised Austrian subject, having amassed enormous wealth. 



1793-1804.] THE ADDINGTON MINISTRY. 9 

the imminence of disaster from the disaffection of his 
followers. He offered to resign the Treasury in 
favour of a peer, Pitt and he to share the administration 
of affairs as Secretary of State. This proposal Pitt 
brushed contemptuously, almost derisively, aside; 
matters went on as before, except that the former 
friendship of Pitt and Addington was at an end. 
When Parliament met on 24th November, Pitt did 
not appear in the House. 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

"25th Nov., 1802, 
" I went yesterday to the opening of our campaign, 
with some apprehension, I confess, as I knew Fox 
was to be there, least his sentiments upon the subject 
of France and England should diminish my esteem for 
him. His conduct, however, and his speech were, in 
my mind, in every respect perfect; and if he will let 
them be the models for his future imitation, he will 
keep in the Doctor and preserve the peace. God con- 
tinue Fox's prudence and Pitt's gout ! The infamous 
malignity and misrepresentation of that scoundrel 
Windham did injury only to himself: never creature 
less deserved it than poor Fox. You cannot imagine 
the pleasure I feel in having this noble animal still to 
look up to as my champion. Nothing can be so 
whimsical as the state of the House of Commons. 
The Ministers, feeble beyond all powers of carica- 
turing, are unsupported — at least by the acclama- 
tions — of that great mass of persons who always 
support all Ministers, but who are ashamed publicly to 
applaud them. They are insulted by the indigent, 
mercenary Canning, who wants again to be in place, 
and they are openly pelted by the sanguinary faction of 
Windham and the Grenvillites as dastardly poltroons, 
for not rushing instantly into war. Under these 
circumstances their only ally is the old Opposition. 
... If they are so supported, I see distinctly that 
Fox will at least have arrived at this situation that, 
tho' unable to be Minister himself, he may in fact 



lO THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

prevent one from being turned out. . . . God send Pitt 
and Dundas anywhere but to the House of Commons, 
and much might, I think, be done by a judicious 
dandling of the Doctor. 

" Lord Henry Petty and I dined together yesterday. 
He is as good as ever. We both took our seats behind 
old Charley." 

The treaty of Amiens had been concluded in March, 
1802, but Bonaparte's restless ambition, and especially 
his desire to re-establish the colonial power of France, 
menaced the maritime ascendancy of Great Britain, and 
Addington watched uneasily the war-clouds gathering 
again upon the horizon. 

In February, 1803, M. Talleyrand demanded from 
Lord Whitworth, British Ambassador in Paris, an 
assurance of the speedy evacuation of Malta by King 
George's Government, in compliance with the tenth 
article of the Treaty of Amiens, which provided for 
the restoration of that island to the Knights of St. 
John of Jerusalem. In reply to this. Lord Whitworth 
was instructed to point to the aggrandisement of 
France subsequent to and in contravention of the 
terms of the said treaty as justifying the British 
Government in delaying the evacuation. On i8th 
February Lord Whitworth had a personal interview 
with the First Consul, when he failed to obtain from 
him any admission of the violation by the French of 
the treaty, or any assurance that the redress claimed 
for certain British subjects would receive considera- 
tion. Negotiations dragged on till, on 13th March, 
Whitworth had a stormy interview with Bonaparte, 
who charged the British Government with being deter- 
mined to drag him into war. Finally, on 12th May the 
rupture was complete; Lord Whitworth requested 
his passport, and the two countries were at war. 



1793-1804.] SIR JOHN MOORE. II 

Mr. Creeveyyo Dr. Curne. 

"nth March, 1803, 

". . . No one knows the precise point on which 
the damn'd Corsican and the Doctor* have knocked 
their heads together, but I must think, till I know 
more, that Addington has been precipitate. The injury 
done is incalculable. I defy any man to have con- 
fidence in public credit in future, till a perfectly new 
order of things takes place. ... As long as the neigh- 
bouring Monster lives, he will bully and defy us ; and 
being once discovered, as it now is, that even Adding- 
ton will bluster as well as him in return, I see no 
prospect of prosperity in this country, that is — the 
prosperity of peace — as long as Buonaparte lives. . . . 
Was it not lucky that I sold out at 74^ ? They are 
to-day about 64." 

"7th April, 1803. 

"... I have barely time to say that of all the Men 
I have ever seen, your countryman General Moore f 
is the greatest prodigy. I thank my good fortune to 
have seen so much of him — such a combination of 
acknowledged fame, of devotion from all who have 
served under him — of the most touching simplicity 
and yet most accomplished manners — of the most 
capital understanding, captivating conversation, and 
sentiments of honour as exalted as his practice. . . . 
Think of such a beast as Pitt treating, almost with 
contempt, certainly with injury, such a man as 
Moore. ..." 

"1 8th. 

"... I think if I was to say anything more about 
General Moore to you than what I wrote to you from 
the House of Commons, it would only be diffusive. . . . 
I never saw the Man before who made me think so 
much about him after each time that I had seen him. 
We all think of him with the same devotion. . . ." 

* Mr. Addington. 

t General Sir John Moore, K.B. 



12 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

Dr. Currie to Mr. Creevey. 

"Liverpool, May ist, 1803. 

" I was infinitely obliged by your last report, and 
beg of you to give me another, as matters draw fast to 
a crisis, I will expect to have a few lines at latest by 
the post of Wednesday. 

" I fear thi-s Billy * will come in after all. 

" I have to tell you one or two things about your 
friends here. 

"First, I have been attending your aunt, Mrs. 
Eaton, who was very ill, but is recovered. I was to 
have written to you about the time she got better, but 
neglected it. But in answer to her earnest enquiries, 
1 delivered your love (God forgive me) and your con- 
gratulations on her recovery. I said everything kind 
and civil for you to Eaton too, so that you are not to 
pretend that you did not hear of her illness. But you 
are now to write a few lines either to him or her as 
soon as convenient, saying what you see fit on so 
afi'ecting an occasion — now do not forget this. I 
cannot think how the old lady came to trust herself 
in my hands, for I had just been in at the death of 
two of her neighbours, and I consider my being called 
to her as a symptom of great attachment to you, and 
probably in its consequences no way unfavourable to 
you. For I must tell you that she and I are wondrous 
great, and we talk you over by the half-hour together. 
She and he seem very much devoted to you. . . . They 
are quite pleased, too, with Mrs. Creevey. 

"Give my love to Moore f when you see him. 
Scarlett J has been here with his brother; a very 
worthy fellow. He says you are coming on. What 
sort of a thing is this presentation ? I see you are a 
nominee in the Boston election. I hope it is for 
Maddock, whom I know a little and like a good deal. 

"We are all cursed flatt here about the spun out 
negociations. Nothing doing. Everything stagnated. 

* Mr. Pitt. 

t Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Graham) Moore, R.N., brother 
to Sir John Moore. 

X Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1834 ; created Lord 
Abinger in 1835. 



I793-I804.] WAR. 1 3 

We shall have war, because it is just the most absurd 
thing in creation." 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Cttrrie. 

" Saturday, 7th May. 

" No news is good news, you know they say, and 
at this moment I think it certainly is. Lord Whit- 
worth was certainly at Paris on Wednesday night late, 
and I think he is traced as far as Thursday. It is 
equally certain that he had a new proposal from the 
Consul,* and this is still better news. There is a 
general inclination to-day to think we shall have peace 
after all. ..." 

"nth May. 

"... I supped last night with Fox at Mrs. Bou- 
verie's . . . There were there Grey, Whitbread, Lord 
Lauderdale, Fitzpatrick, Lord Robert Spencer,! Lord 
John Townshend and your humble servant. . . . You 
would be perfectly astonished at the vigour of body, 
the energy of mind, the innocent playfulness and 
happiness of Fox. The contrast between him and his 
old associates is the most marvellous thing I ever 
saw — they having all the air of shattered debauchees, 
of passing gaming, drinking, sleepless nights, whereas 
the old leader of the gang might really pass for the 
pattern and the effect of domestic good order. ... A 
telegraphic dispatch announces that Lord Whitworth 
has left Paris."! 

"Saturday, 14th May. 

"... A messenger has arrived to-day who left 
Paris at 9 o'clock Thursday night, and Lord Whit- 
worth was to leave it in the night, or rather morning, 
at two ; so I presume he will be in England on Monday. 
Think only what a day Monday or Tuesday will be 
in the House of Commons ! and think likewise what 
a damn'd eternal fool the Doctor must turn out to 
be. Upon my soul ! it is too shocking to think 
of the wretched destiny of mankind in being placed 

* Bonaparte. 

t Third son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough. 

X News was telegraphed by semaphore signals. 



14 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

in the hands of such pitiful, squirting politicians 
as this accursed Apothecary * and his family and 
friends ! . . ." 

On i6th May the King sent a message to the House 
of Commons calling upon it to support him in resist- 
ing the aggressive policy of France and the ambitious 
schemes of the First Consul. Pitt might no longer 
hold aloof. 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

" i6th May. 

"... I supped with Fox, Grey, &c., &c., last night 
at Whitbread's. Fox says there are no state papers 
to be given us ; the whole dispute has been carried on 
by conversation. It began in consequence of some 
intemperate furious expression of Buonaparte ; it re- 
lated to Egypt. . . . The Consul got irritated ; said 
he would put himself at the head of his army and 
invade England. But the offence is about Egypt. 
He said upon this subject — Nous Vaurons malgre vous! 
Fox says he believes this conversation to be the origin 
of the dispute, and that our claims upon Malta are in 
the way of recognizance to make Buonaparte keep the 
peace. . . ." 

" 20th. 

". , . This damned fellow Pitt has taken his seat 
and is here, and, what is worse, it is certain that he 
and his fellows are to support the war. They are to 
say the time for criticism is suspended; that the 
question is not now whether Ministers have been too 
tardy or too rash, but the French are to be fought. 
Upon my soul ! the prospect has turned me perfectly 
sick. . . ." 

"21st. 

". . . It is really infinitely droll to see these old 
rogues so defeated by the Court and Doctor. I really 
think Pitt is done : his face is no longer red, but 
yellow ; his looks are dejected ; his countenance I 

* Mr. Addington. 



1793-1804.] THE RETURN OF PITT. 1 5 

think much changed and fallen, and every now and 
then he gives a hollow cough. Upon my soul, hating 
him as I do, I am almost moved to pity to see his 
fallen greatness. I saw this once splendid fellow 
drive yesterday to the House of Lords in his forlorn, 
shattered equipage, and I stood near him behind the 
throne till two o'clock this morning. I saw no ex- 
pression but melancholy on the fellow's face — princes 
of the blood passing him without speaking to him, and, 
as I could fancy, an universal sentiment in those 
around him that he was done. ..." 



An offer of mediation between Britain and France 
having been received from the Emperor Alexander of 
Russia, a debate arose in the House of Commons. 

"24tli May, 1803. 

". . . Lord Hawkesbury * then began and made a 
very elaborate speech of two hours, containing little 
inflammatory matter, and being a fair and reasonable 
representation of his case and justification of the war. 
Erskine followed in the most confused, unintelligible, 
inefficient performance that ever came from the 
mouth of man. Then came the great fiend himself — 
Pitt — who, in the elevation of his tone of mind and 
composition, in the infinite energy of his style, the 
miraculous perspicuity and fluency of his periods, 
outdid (as it was thought) all former performances of 
his. Never, to be sure, was there such an exhibition ; 
its effect was dreadful. He spoke nearly two hours — 
all for war, and for war without end. He would say 
nothing for Ministers, but he exhorted or rather 
commanded them to lose no time in establishing 
measures of finance suited to our situation. . . . Wil- 
berforce made an inimitable speech for peace and on 
grounds the most calculated for popular approbation. 
. . . It is said the House of Commons never behaved 
so ill as in their reception of this speech. They tried 
over and over again to cough him down, but without 
effect. ..." 

* Afterwards Earl of Liverpool and Prime Minister. 



l6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

The speech referred to above was universally ac- 
knovi^ledged as one of the finest ever delivered by Pitt ; 
but it is not included among his published speeches, 
owing to the accidental exclusion of reporters from 
the gallery. Fox replied on the second night of the 
debate in a speech of equal merit ; but there is a gap 
in Creevey's letters covering the whole of the rest of 
the session, and we know not, though we may imagine, 
the effect of his leader's eloquence upon his mind. 
His next letter to Dr. Currie deals with a matter of 
common criticism and objection at the present day, by 
men of all parties — namely, the anomaly of the Lord 
Lieutenancy of Ireland. Nobody can explain its 
merits : its defects are patent to everybody ; while 
the selection of a peer to fill what ought to be one of 
the most responsible posts in any administration, has 
to be made from a very limited number, with more 
regard to their private means than to their capacity 
for public service ; so excessive is the expenditure 
entailed upon the Lord Lieutenant's private income. 
It is apparent from the following letter that the 
objection is nearly as old as the Union : — 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

"22nd Aug., 1803. 

"... I saw a great deal of Sheridan. We dined 
together several times, got a little bosky, and he took 
great pains to convince me he was sincere and confi- 
dential with me. ... A plan of his relates to Ireland, 
and it is the substitution of a Council for the present 
Viceroy, the head of the Council to be the Prince of 
Wales, his assistants to be Lord Moira, Lord Hutchin- 
son and Sheridan himself The Prince is quite heated 
upon the subject ; nothing else is discussed by them. 
Lord Hutchinson is as deep in the design as any of 
them, but God knows it is about as probable as the 



1 793-1804.] PER MARE ET TERRAS. 1 7 

embassy of old Charley * to Russia. I believe Sherry 
is very much in the confidence of the Ministers. They 
have convinced him of the difficulty of pressing the 
King for any attentions to the Prince of Wales ; he is 
quite set against him, and holds entirely to the Duke 
of York, who, on the other hand, is most odious to 
the Ministry. . . . Have you begun your visits to 
Knowsleyyet? . . . If you see Mrs. Hornby, cultivate 
her. She is an excellent creature ; her husband, the 

rector, is the most tiresome, prosy son of a I 

ever met with, but is worthy. ..." 

General Sir John Moore to Mr. Creevey. 

" Sandgate, 15th Sept., 1803. 

". . . The newspapers have disposed of me and 
my troops at Lisbon and Cherbourgh, but we be- 
lieve that we have not moved from this place. I 
begun to despair of seeing you here, and am quite 
happy to find that, at last, 1 am to have that pleasure. 
If the Miss Ords do not think they can trust to the 
Camp for beaux, or if they have any in attendance 
whose curiosity to see soldiers they may chuse to 
indulge, assure them that whoever accompanies them 
shall be cordially received by everybody here. . . ." 

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey. 

*' Plymouth, August 7th, 1803. 

"... I never had to do with a new ship's company 
before made up of Falstaff 's men — ' decayed tapsters,' 
&c., so I do not bear that very well and I get no sea- 
men but those who enter here at Plj^mouth, which are 
very few indeed. The Admiralty will not let me have 
any who enter for the ship at any of the other ports, 
which cuts up my hopes of a tolerable ship's company. 
... I hear sometimes from my brother Jack.f He 
says they have had a review of his whole Corps 
before the Duke of York. . . . My mother was more 
delighted with the scene than any boy or girl of 
fifteen. N.B. — she is near 70. . . . She is an excellent 
mother of a soldier. I am not afraid of showing her 

* Mr. Fox. t General Sir John Moore. 



I8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

to Mrs. Creevey, altho' she is of a very different cast 
from what she has generally lived with. If Mrs. 
Creevey does not like her, 1 shall never feel how the 
devil she came to like me. 

''Jack says his Corps are not at all what he would 
have them, yet that they will beat any of the French 
whom he leads them up to. I am convinced the 
French can make no progress in England, and do not 
believe now that they will attempt it ; but how is all 
this to end ? However that may be, as I am in for it, 
I wish to God I was tolerably ready, and scouring the 
seas. What the devil can Fox mean by his palaver 
about a military command for the Prince of Wales ? 
That may come well enough from Mrs. Barham 
perhaps." 

'■'■ Indefatigable, Cawsand Bay, Sept. i6th, 1803. 

". . . It has pleased the Worthies aloft to keep 
us in expectation of sailing at an hours notice since 
Sunday last. This is very proper, I am sure, and 
rather inconvenient too. I hate to be a-going a- 
going. It is disagreeable to Jack, because I have 
sent all his wives and his loves on shore, and altho' 
I have made him an apology, he must think the 
Captain is no great things. The blackguards will 
know me by-and-by. They seem a tolerable set, and 
I am already inclined to love them. If they fight, I shall 
worship them. . . . There is another very fine frigate 
here, as ready as we are — the Fisgard, commanded 
by a delightful little fellow, Lord Mark Kerr.* He 
is an honour to Lords as they go. . . . If there is to 
be a war with Spain, it would be well to let us know 
of it before we sail, as money — altho' nothing to a 
philosopher — is something to me. I am growing old, 
and none of the women will have me now if I cannot 
keep them in style, and you know there is no carrying 
on the war ashore in the peace, when it comes, with- 
out animals of that description. . . . The most cheer- 
ful fellow on politics is my brother Jack ; you'll hear 
no croaking from him. He says it's all nonsense. . . ." 

* Third son of the 5th Marquess of Lothian: married the Countess 
of Antrim in her own right, and became father of the 4th and 5th Earls 
of Antrim. Died in 1840, 



1793-1804.] THE FRONT BENGH. 19 



Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

"London, Dec. 21, 1803. 

' "... My impression of Addington and his col- 
leagues during this short part of the Session, has been 
pretty much what it has heretofore been. They are, 
upon my soul, the feeblest — lowest almost — of Men, 
still more so of Ministers. When there is anything 
like a general attack upon them, they look as if they 
felt it all; they blush and look at one another in 
despair; they make no fight; or, if they offer to defend 
themselves, no one listens but to laugh at them. 
When the House is empty and their enemies are 
scattered, they rally and fall in a body upon Wind- 
ham, call him all kinds of names, and adopt all kinds 
of the most unfounded misrepresentations of his 
sentiments. Upon these occasions they are quite 
altered men ; they talk loud and long, and cheer one 
another enough to pull the house down. These 
periodical triumphs look well upon paper, and no 
doubt must captivate a great portion of the publick ; 
but rely upon it, the bitterest enemy Windham has 
in the world, who is possessed of any sense and any 
character, turns with disgust from the sound of these 
low-lived philippics. Bad — miserable as I have heard 
Erskine in the House of Commons, never was he so 
execrable as on the night when you rejoice that he 
attacked Windham. These creatures of imbecillity 
have no such thing as a plan ; they live by temporary 
expedients from hand to mouth — by the contrary 
views and characters of their opponents — by that very 
feebleness which in itself cannot rouse up personal 
animosity in nobler minds — by low cunning — by appro- 
priate adoption of humility and impudence. In addi- 
tion to all this, they have done what the worst men 
might have done — they have most wickedly and 
wantonly plunged us into this contemptible war, and 
the just reputation of their besotted folly throughout 
the world is a security for our remaining in it, till 
chance or accident shall relieve us. 

"With all their faults, I confess they are well- 
behaved and civil, as compleatly so as your own 



20 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. Ch. I. 

servant can be, and I must believe that, had they no 
restraint upon them from their Master, the mediocrity 
of their understandings, their situation in life, their 
private characters and turns of mind, would not per- 
mit them to think of gratifying any ambition or resent- 
ment by either desolating the v^orld by war or tyran- 
nically invading the liberties of their country. 

"The impression of Pitt was what his enemies 
most triumphantly delight in; but what they never 
could have been sanguine enough to expect, his speech 
was the production of the dirtiest of mankind, and so 
it was received. His intimates — his nearest neigh- 
bours — Canning and Co., sat mute, astounded and evi- 
dently thinking themselves disgraced by the shuffling 
tacticks of their military leader. His lingering after 
Addington, tho' at open war with him in print — his 
caution of touching either Fox or Windham, those 
proscribed victims of fortune — his senseless vapouring 
and most untrue and envious criticism upon volun- 
teers, and, above all, his officious and disgusting senti- 
ment as to the recovery of his Majesty's electoral do- 
minion,* accommodated all his hearers with sufficient 
reasons for condemnation, and, for once in his life, I 
have no doubt this prodigy of art and elocution had in 
his favorite theatre not a single admirer. Canning 
and Sturges, talking to me afterwards about the 
excellence of Fox's speech, said what a pity it was Pitt 
had not taken the same manly part. I asked why he 
had not done so, and they shrugged up their shoulders 
and said a man who had been minister eighteen years 
was a bad opposition man. 

" Old Charley was himself, and of course was ex- 
quisitely delightful. Unfettered by any hopes or 
fears — by any systems or connection — he turned his 
huge understanding loose amongst these skirmishers, 
and it soon settled, with its usual and beautiful per- 
spicuity, all the points that came within the decision 
of reasoning, judgment, experience and knowledge of 
mankind. In addition to the correctness of his views 
and delineations, he was all fire and simplicity and 
sweet temper; and the effect of these united per- 
fections upon the House was as visible in his favor as 

* The kingdom of Hanover. 



1793^1804.] LAUDATOR TEMPORIS ACTL 21 

their disappointment and disgust had been before at 
the unworthy performance of Colonel Pitt. 

" It is almost too advanced a state of my letter to 
take in the Windhams and Co. We all know that he 
and the Grenvilles have been the merciless blood- 
hounds of past times, and no friend of Fox can ever 
forget or forgive the bitter malignity with which 
Windham pursued and hunted down the great and 
amiable creature. But as a party, and with such a foil 
to it as the present administration, they are entitled 
to greater weight than they have." 

One constantly hears lamentation from grave 
persons over the deterioration of the House of Com- 
mons from some past ideal; but just as people are 
accustomed now to look back upon the time when 
Pitt and Fox were protagonists as the true parlia- 
mentary golden age, so it was in that day. In con- 
cluding this long letter, Creevey, who had just one 
year of parliamentary experience, moralises upon the 
lowered tone of the debates. 

" Windham, Lord Grenville and Elliott have great 
parliamentary talents, and Tom Grenville is most 
respectable in the same way, and of a high and unsullied 
character. They are of the old school as compared 
with the Ministry ; they are full of courage, _ of 
acquirements, of elevated manners ; there is nothing 
low in the fellows, there is no cringing to power or 
popularity. In Fox's absence they are the only repre- 
sentatives of past and better days in Parliament." 

"21 Jan., 1804. 

". . . When I repeat any of Sheridan's opinions, I 
do so with more doubt than in stating the opinions of 
any other persons, for he has acquired such tricks at 
Drury Lane, such skill in scene-shifting, that I am 
compelled by experience to listen with distrust to him. 
For the last three months he has been damning Fox 
in the midst of his enemies, and in his drunken and 
unguarded moments has not spared him even in the 



22 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

circles of his most devoted admirers. He did so at 
Woburn, the Duke of Bedford's, and was (as you may 
have heard) challenged for it upon the spot by Adair.* 
Whitbread, who was present and who made it up (for 
Sheridan accepted the challenge), told me all the par- 
ticulars. Now he apparently is much pacified and 
less inclined to volunteer his panegyric upon the 
Doctor ;t and if one may venture to guess at the 
motive in so perfect a performer in all mysterious 
arts, I should say he had been damnably galled by 
the coldness with which Fox's friends resented the 
abuse of the old fellow, and that the dinners and 
stupidity of Addington and his family parties had 
been but a poor recompense for his treachery to Fox, 
and that he was creeping back as well as he is able 
into his old place. Tierney, as you may suppose, 
would be dished by Pitt and Addington embracing, 
and he is therefore laboring to keep the present 
administration as it is, and with this view is in- 
cessantly intriguing for support of it. ... I forget 
whether I ever told you of his inviting me to dinner 
once. It was to meet Brogden and Col. Porter, two 
cursed rum touches that he has persuaded to vote 
with him and to desert Fox; so I told Mrs. Creevey 
before I went that I was sure I was invited to be 
converted. Accordingly, after a decent time and a 
considerable allowance of wine had been consumed 
after dinner, my gentlemen begun to open their 
batteries upon me. I returned their fire by telling 
them I should save them much time and trouble by 
stating to them at once that my political creed was 
very simple and within a very narrow compass — that 
it was 'Devotion to Fox.' And so we all got to 
loggerheads directly, and jawed and drank till twelve 
or one o'clock, and I suppose I was devilish abusive, 
for they are all as shy as be damned of me ever since." 

* Sir Robert Adair [1763-1855], Whig member for Appleby, 
famous as the target of Canning's frequent satire. Canning wrote of 
him as " Bawba-dara-adul-phoolah," and introduced him to im- 
mortahty by making him the hero of the ballad "Sweet Matilda 
Pottingen," which was supposed to describe the course of Adair's love 
when he was a student at Gottingen. 

t Addington. 



i793-i8o4.] PITT AND FOX AS ALLIES. 23 

Pitt's intolerance of Addington now passed into 
an active phase, and the unfortunate Prime Minister 
found himself under a cross-fire directed by the tw6 
most powerful men in the House — Pitt and Fox. The 
following notes dispel any doubt which may still exist 
as to the formal and explicit understanding between 
these ancient antagonists for the object which both 
had at heart, though for very different reasons, namely, 
the overthrow of Addington : — 

Rt Hon. Charles Fox to Mr. Creevey. 

"Arlington St., Saturday [1804]. 

"Dear Sir, 

" I enclose you a part of a letter from Grey. 
If you can speak to Brandling * upon the subject you 
may tell him that in all the divisions we shall have 
this next week, either Mr. Pitt will be with us or we 
with him. 

" Yours, 

"C J. Fox." 

Enclosure in above. 

"My dear Fox, 

" I forgot yesterday to answer your question 
about Brandling. He is not at present in this county 
[Northumberland], and I don't know whether he is in 
London or in Yorkshire. Creevey, his brother-in-law, 
will be able to suggest the best mode of applying to 
him ; but I should think, notwithstanding his hatred 
of the Doctor, that he would not vote against him 
without Pitt." 

The unnatural alliance between Pitt and Fox was 
manifested in its least commendable aspect upon the 
occasion of Pitt's motion for an inquiry into the 
administration of the First Lord of the Admiralty, 

* Mr. Brandling, M.P. for Ne\vcastle-on-Tyne, was Mrs. Creevey's 
brother. 



24, THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

Earl St. Vincent, who had not only contributed to 
securing for his country the mastery of the ocean, 
but, by means of the Commission of Inquiry which he 
established as First Lord, had exposed and put an 
end to many abuses in the service. Pitt's motion, of 
course, was hostile to the gallant admiral, through 
whose discredit he sought to bring Addington's 
Government into disgrace; and Fox supported the 
motion in a speech the insincerity of which was not 
inferior to that of Pitt, and staggered even such a 
good party man as Creevey. 

Capt Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Plymouth Dock, Feby. ist, 1804. 

"... I suppose you mean to join the set that 
prepare to worry the poor Doctor when Parliament 
meets. What can he do? He seems, or we seem, to 
do as well as Bonoparte — fretting and fuming and 
playing off his tricks from Calais to Boulogne and 
back again. The fellow has done too much for a 
mere hum; he certainly will try something, and 1 
hope to be in at the death of some of his expeditions. 
If they do not take my men, we shall soon be ready 
for sea again. New copper, my boy! we shall sail 
like the wind. . . ." 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

"22 March, 1804. 

". . . With respect to the debate . . . nothing 
could be ... so unlike a case against Lord St. Vincent: 
I really doubted the fidelity of my ears all the time I 
listened to him (Fox), he was so very unlike himself. 
His first reply was a great and striking display of his 
powers, but the charge against the Admiralty derived 
little support or elucidation from it. I confess I felt 
a wish that Fox would not have taken the part he did, 
because I cannot reconcile it to my notions either of 
private friendship or parliamentary justice to put a 



1793-1804.] THE BONDS OF PARTY. 25 

man upon his trial, because I am sure he is innocent. 
There were, however, most powerful arguments urged 
by Fox that in a great measure reconciled me to the 
vote I gave, and indeed had they been much less and 
much weaker, I should most readily have gone with 
him. A Leader of a Party has a most difficult part 
imposed upon him on such an occasion. It is im- 
possible he can be alone influenced by the abstract 
question of merit or demerit of the motion but of 
course must calculate in every way upon the effects of 
his vote. As a private of a party there is nothing so 
fatal to publick principle, or one's own private respect 
and consequence, as acting for oneself upon great 
questions. I am more passionately attached every 
day to Party. I am certain that without it nothing 
can be done, and I am more certain from every day's 
experience that the leader of the party to which I 
belong is as superior in talents, in enlightened views, 
in publick and private virtues, to all other party 
leaders as one human being can be to another. He 
must therefore give many, many votes that I may 
think are wrong, before I vote against him or not 
with him. 

" I scarcely know an earthly blessing 1 would pur- 
chase at the expense of those sensations I feel towards 
the incomparable Charley ! " 

" 2nd April. 

". . . The fact is I believe, as I have always done, 
that the Regal function will never more be exercised 
by him (George III.), and the Dr.* has most impudently 
assumed these functions in doing what he has done. 

"And now again for speculation. I can swear to 
what Sheridan will try for, if the thing does not too 
suddenly come to a crisis. His insuperable vanity 
has suggested to him the brilliancy of being first with 
the Prince and governing his councils. He will, if he 
sees it practicable, try, and is now trying, to alienate 
the Prince from Fox, and to reconcile him to the 
wretched Addington. The effect of such a diabolical 
project is doubtless to be dreaded with a person so 
unsteady as the Prince; but then again there are 

* Mr, Addinsjton. 



26 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

things that comfort me. If the Prince has a point on 
which he is uniform, it is a proud and just attachment 
to the old Nobility of the country, articles which 
fortunately find no place in the composition of the 
present ministers. His notion, too, of Sheridan, I 
believe, has not much to do with his qualities for a 
statesman. Devonshire House, too, is his constant 
haunt, where every one is against Sheridan ; and 
where the Prince, at his own request, met Grey three 
weeks ago and offered him any pledge as a security 
for his calling Fox to his councils whenever he had 
the power. Master Sherry does not know this, and 
of course it must not be known ; but I know it and 
am certain of the fact. Sheridan displays evident 
distrust of his own projects, and is basely playing an 
under game as Fox's friend, in the event of defeat to 
him and his Dr. I never saw conduct more distinctly 
base than his." 

" I St May. 

". . . The enemy of mankind is Pitt. I detest from 
the bottom of my heart him and all his satellites. I 
am sure, too, that, independent of his dispositions, his 
mind is of a mean and little structure, much below the 
requisite for times like these — active, intriguing and 
most powerful, but all in detail, quite incapable of 
accompanying the elevated views of Fox." 

Addington stuck stiffly to his post, but the forces 
allied against him in the Commons proved irresistible 
in the end; in May, 1804, he resigned, and Pitt entered 
upon his last administration. Addington, smother- 
ing his resentment of the rough handling he had 
received, joined Pitt's Cabinet as President of the 
Council in January, 1805, accepting at the same time 
the peerage which he had previously declined. Pitt 
would have given Fox a share in the administration 
hardly inferior to his own, but the King would not 
hear of it, and thus was lost for ever the noble project 
of uniting the chief political parties for the defence of 
the Empire. 



1793-1804.] THE HOPE OF THE WHIGS. 27 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

" 2ncl May, 1804. 

". . . It is felt by the Pittites that the Prince and 
a Regency must be resorted to, and as the Prince 
evinced on every occasion the strongest decision in 
favor of Fox, the Pittites are preparing for a reci- 
procity of good offices. God send we may have a 
Regency, and then the cards are in our hands. I wish 
you had seen the party of which I formed one in the 
park just now. Lord Buckingham, his son Temple, 
Ld. Derby, Charles Grey,* Ld. Fitzwilliam, Canning, 
Ld. Morpeth t and Ld. Stafford. J . . . The four 
physicians were at Buckingham House this morning : 
I feel certain he (the King) is devilish bad. . . ." 

" 3rd May. 

" Under our present circumstances no news is 
good news, because it shows there are great diffi- 
culties in making the peace between the King and 
Pitt. . . . The King has communicated to him that he 
will see him to-morrow or Saturday, ivhich com- 
mimication Pitt immediately forwarded to Fox. There 
is, I hope, much value in these facts : they show, I 
hope, that the Monarch is done, and can no longer 
make Ministers ; they show too, I hope, that Pitt 
thinks so. Why this delay at such a time if the King 
is well ? Why this civility from Pitt to Fox ? if the 
former did not suspect no good was to come of his 
interviews with his Master. We are all in better 
spirits — by 'all,' I mean the admirers of Fox and 
haters of Pitt. . . ." 

" 8tli May, 

"... I was too late for last night's post, and 
besides I was struck dumb and lifeless by the 
elevation of that wretch Pitt to his former fatal 
eminence — sick to death, too, with something like a 
sensation of Fox's disgrace and defeat, and of the 

* Afterwards 2nd Earl Grey, 
t Afterwards 6th Earl of Carlisle. 

X 2nd Marquess of Stafford ; created Duke of Sutherland in 
1833. 



28 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [CiL 1. 

termination of all our hopes. But I am better to-day ; 
the Grenvilles and Wyndhamites have to a man stuck 
fast to Fox and refuse to treat with Pitt. The Prince, 
too, loads Fox with caresses, and swears his father's 
exception to Fox alone is meant as the last and 
greatest of personal injuries to himself, because the 
King knows full well that Fox is the first favorite of 
the Prince." 

" Park Place, June 2nd, 1804. 

". . . Well — I think, considering we have certainly 
been out-jockeyed by the villain Pitt, we are doing 
famously. Pitt, I think, is in a damnable dilemma; 
his character has received a cursed blow from the 
appearance of puzzle in his late conduct, from the 
wretched farce of [illegible] turning out Addington, 
and keeping those who were worse than him ; and 
from his having produced no military plans yet, after 
all his anathemas against the late Ministers for their 
delay. The country, I now firmly believe, was tired 
of Pitt and even of the Court, and conceived some 
new men and councils, and above all an union of 
all great men, was a necessary experiment for the 
situation. Pitt has disappointed this- wish and 
expectation, and has shown no necessity that has 
compelled him so to do. He has all the air of having 
acted a rapacious, selfish, shabby part ; he is sur- 
rounded by shabby partizans ; in comparison with 
his own relations, the Grenvilles, he is degraded ; he 
has no novelty to recommend him ; his Master * is on 
the wane, and to a certain extent is evidently hostile 
to him. In addition to all this, the daily and nightly 
attendance of Dr. Simmonds and four physicians at 
Buckingham House must inevitably increase the 
Prince's power, and diminish that of Pitt. I saw these 
five Drs. and Dundass, the surgeon from Richmond, 
come out of Buckingham House with Pitt half an 
hour ago. Simmonds and one of the physicians 
allways return at five in the evening — the former for 
the night — the latter for some hours. I have watched 
and know their motions well. This must end surely 
at no distant period — a Regency — and then I hope 

* George III. 



1793-1804.] THREATS OF INVASION. 29 

the game's our own ! In the mean time, these dinners 
and this activity of the Prince are certainly doing 
good, and our friends are much more numerous than 
I expected. We are a great body — the Prince at the 
head of us. Fox, Grey, &c., are all in great spirits. 
. . . Your humble servant partakes in the passing 
festivities of these Opposition grandees. I dine 
to-morrow at Lord Fitzwilliam's, this day week at 
Carlton House; Monday I dined at Lord Derby's. I 
really believe I have played my cards, so far, 
excellently with these people." 



General Sir John Moore to Mr. Creevey. 

" Sandgate, 27th Aug., 1804. 

". . . We understand that Government have 
positive information that we are to be invaded, and I 
am told that Pitt believes it. The experience of the 
last twelve months has taught me to place little 
confidence in the information or belief of Ministers, 
and as the undertaking seems to me so arduous, and 
offering so little prospect of success, I cannot per- 
suade myself that Bonoparte will be mad enough to 
attempt it. He will continue to threaten, by which 
means alone he can do us harm. The invasion 
would, I am confident, end in our glory and in his 
disgrace. 

''The newspapers continue to mention secret 
expeditions, and have sometimes named me as one of 
the Generals to be employed. I put these upon a par 
with the invasion. We have at present no dispose- 
able force, and, if we had, I see no object worthy 
upon which to risk it. Thus, without belief in in- 
vasion or foreign expeditions, my situation here 
becomes daily more irksome, and I am almost reduced 
to wish for peace. I am tired of the confinement, 
without the occupation, of war." 

In the following letter from Dr. Currie occurs the 
first mention of one, hitherto unheard of, with whom 
Creevey was destined to be long and intimately 



3P THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. I. 

associated. Currie complains of the unfairness of 
Henry Brougham's criticism of " Lord Lauderdale's 
very ingenious book." 

"2nd October, 1804. 

". . . The review of his book in the Edinr. 
Review is every way unfair and foul. It is by a 
scatter-brained fellow, one Brougham, who wrote two 
volumes on colonial policy, the two practical objects 
of which were — to abolish the slave-trade, and to 
propose that we should join our armies to those of 
the French for the extirpation of the Negroes of 
St. Domingo. . . . He has got a sort of philosophical 
cant about him, and a way of putting obscure 
sentences together, which seem to fools to contain 
deep meaning, especially as an air of consummate 
petulance and confidence runs through the whole. 
He has been taken up, I am told, by Wilberforce, and 
is paying his court to Pitt. He is a notorious 
prostitute, and is setting himself up to sale. It 
seems Ld. Lauderdale offended him by refusing to 
be introduced to him, but it is to pay court to Pitt, 
depend on it, that he writes as he does. . . . You 
may mention this to Mr. Grey." 



Lord Henry Petty \afterwards $rd Marquess of 
Lansdowjie] to Mr. Creevey. 

"Bath, Nov. 23rd, 1804. 

"... [We are] within a few doors here of Ld, 
Thurlow's house, which has been recently honor'd 
with a Royal visit, when, as you may suppose, the 
whole scene of ministerial intrigue and family 
negociation was laid open: some legal business of 
importance was also transacted, for one lawyer came 
down with the P., and another was sent for while he 
remained. . . . Most probably it relates to some 
arrangement for the Princess. I am really glad to 
find he has conducted himself with so much firmness, 
and at the same time with some decorum. I give him 
the more credit for it, as I suspect the councils of 



1793-1804.] THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 3 1 

Carlton House are not composed of the most high- 
minded or immaculate statesmen.* 

" I have received a long and interesting letter from 
Mr. Parnell with an account of the Catholic proceed- 
ings in Dublin, which have at last assumed a very 
formidable aspect. . . . He says — ' In a month's time 
three millions of men will be formed into a well- 
disciplined and united body, headed by men of great 
wealth, and, what is better, great prudence. Weak as 
this Empire was in civil power, it is still further 
weakened by being divided with Foster;! so that I 
do not think I shall be mistaken in saying that all the 
moral force which influences men's minds and their 
actions thro' their opinions will be lodged in the 
hands of the Catholics ; and unless the Irish Govt, 
can raise a rebellion, which I do not think they can, 
they will fall into an insignificance equal to their 
deserts.' He adds that the meeting in Dublin was 
attended by upwards of eighty gentlemen, the poorest 
of whom has ;^20oo per ann. However the mere 
question of numbers may stand, Pitt's situation must, 
I think, appear far more critical at the commence- 
ment of the ensuing, than at the close of the last, 
session. No army raised at home — no foreign con- 
nections made or improved — on the contrary, a new 
war unnecessarily undertaken, and ungraciously 
entered upon — the Catholic body united in their 
demands, founded on past promises, and a powerfull 
and unbroken Opposition ready and willing to 
support. If such a combination of circumstances 
does not shake the Treasury bench, what mortal 
power can ? . . ." 

* " At that period we had a kind of Cabinet, with whom I used to 
consult. They were the Dukes of York, Portland, Devonshire and 
Northumberland, Lord Guilford (that was Lord North), Lords 
Stormont, Moira and Fitzwilliam and Charles Fox." — Statement by 
George IV. to J. W. Croker [The Croker Papers, i. 289]. 

t Right Hon. J. Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland. 



( 32 ) 



CHAPTER II. 

1805. 

The following holograph note, without date, probably 
belongs to the year 1805, and is interesting as being 
written by the future William IV. on behalf of the 
future George IV. : — 

H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence to Mr. Creevey 
[holograph]. 

" St. James's, Friday night. 

" Dear Sir, 

" The Prince desires you will meet at dinner 
here on Saturday the Eighteenth instant at six o'Clock 
Lord \illegible\ and Sheridan. I hope I need not add 
how happy your presence will make me. I remain 

"Yours sincerely, 

" William." 

Foreign politics during these years absorbed all 
the energies of Ministers, and diverted Pitt from those 
schemes of reform which undoubtedly lay near his 
heart. But the spirit of reform was awake, though it 
was crushed out of the plans of the Cabinet by stress of 
circumstance. The Opposition enjoyed more freedom 
and less responsibility. Creevey attached himself to 
that section of it which was foremost in hunting out 
abuses and proposing drastic measures of redress. 
At this time Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, was 



i8o5.] MELVILLE'S DISGRACE. 33' 

First Lord of the Admiralty. The loth Report of the 
Commission appointed "to inquire into frauds and 
abuses in the Royal Navy " contained grave charges 
against Melville, who was accused in the House of 
Commons of malversation in his office of Treasurer 
of the Navy, committed in years subsequent to 1782, 
The division on 8th April showed 216 votes in each 
lobby, when the Speaker gave his casting vote in 
favour of Whitbread's motion. Melville at once re- 
signed, and his name was erased from the list of Privy 
Councillors. He was impeached before the House of 
Lords and acquitted, but not till 12th June, 1806, six 
months after Pitt's death. 

"I have ever thought," wrote Lord Fitzharris, 
"that an aiding cause in Pitt's death, certainly one 
that tended to shorten his existence, was the result 
of the proceedings against his old friend and colleague 
Lord Melville." 



M7'. Creevey to Dr. Ciirrie. 



" 13th March, 1805. . 

"... I am trying to learn my lesson as a future 
under-secretary or Secretary of the Treasury. . . . 
We had a famous debate on Sheridan's motion : never 
anything was so hollow as the argument on our side. 
Sherry's speech and reply were both excellent. In that 
part of his reply when he fired upon Pitt for his 
treachery to the Catholics, Pitt's eyes started with 
defiance from their sockets, and seemed to tell him 
if he advanced an atom further he would have his 
life. Sherry left him a little alone and tickled him 
about the greatness'of his mind and the good temf)er 
of Melville ; and then he turned upon him again with 
redoubled fury. . . . Never has it fallen to my lot to 
hear such words before in publick or in private used 
by man to man." 



34 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. II. 

"April 13, 1805, 

". . . We have had indeed most famous sport with 
this same Leviathan, Lord Melville. His tumbling so 
soon was as unexpected by all of us as it was by him- 
self or you. It was clear from the first that he was 
ruined sooner or later, but no one anticipated his 
defeat upon the first Attack, and supported as he was 
by the Addingtons as well as Pitts, and with the 
nostrum held out, too, of further enquiry by a secret 
Committee. The history of that celebrated night 
presents a wide field of attack upon Pitt under all 
the infinite difficulties of his situation ; a clamour for 
reform in the expenditure of the publick money is at 
last found to be the touchstone of the House of 
Commons and of the publick. . . . Grey is to give 
notice immediately when we meet to bring in a bill 
appointing Commissioners to examine into abuses in 
the Army, in the Barracks — the Ordnance — the Com- 
missariat Departments. This plan, if it is worth any- 
thing . . , must place Pitt in the cursedest dilemma 
possible. Can he refuse enquiry when it is so loudly 
called for? or, if he grants it, what must become of 
the Duke of York and the Greenwoods and Hammers- 
leys and Delaneys, &:c., &c., &c., whose tricks with 
money in these departments would whitewash those of 
Trotter by comparison. ... I have no hesitation in 
saying that Pitt must be more than man to stand it. 
. . . You can form no notion of his fallen crest in the 
House of Commons — of his dolorous, distracted air. 
He betrayed Melville only to save himself, and so the 
Dundas's think and say. His own ruin must come 
next, and that, I think, at no great distance. You 
may have perceived I have not deserted from my 
enquiries into less important jobs, although old 
Fordyce * got such assistance from Fox. The latter, 
I have reason to believe, repents most cursedly of 
that business. Grey and Whitbread have acted with 
unparalleled kindness to me. I mean to have another 
touch at Fordyce when we meet again. ... At our 

* John Fordyce, Esq., of Ayton, Berwickshire, Receiver-General 
of Land Tax in Scotland. He married Miss Catherine Maxwell of 
Monreith, sister of Jane, Duchess of Gordon. 



i8o5.] THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST JOBS. 35, 

first dinner after my motion about Fordyce, about 
three days after, there were, I daresay, fifty or sixty 
people, Fox in the chair. I was sulky and getting 
pretty drunk, when Fox call'd upon me for a toast — 
a publick man — and so I gave 'Fordyce,' This 
brought on a jaw, during which I got more and more 
drunk, but never departed from my creed that I was 
a betrayed man. However, say nothing of this, I beg. 
With reference to my own interest, I am sure I have 
been a gainer by all this." 

"London, May ir, 1805. , 

" Upon my soul I don't know what to say for 
myself in vindication of my apparently abominable 
neglect of you ; but these are really tempestuous 
times, and I bother myself with too many things and 
too many thoughts, and I get irritable, and I believe 
I eat and drink too much. The upshot of the thing 
is, that day after day passes and my intentions to 
write to you, and to do other good things, pass too. 

" Our campaign for the last six weeks has been a 
marvellous one. . . . The country has surprised me 
as much as the votes of the 8th and loth, and these 
meetings and resolutions have brought us safe into 
port, as far, at least, as relates to Melville. Pitt, too, 
is greatly, if not irreparably damaged by Melville's 
defeat and by certain irregularities of his own. Whit- 
bread's select committee has done great additional 
injury to Melville, and has got sufficient matter estab- 
lished for a resolution against Pitt. The latter has 
confessed that he lent ;^40,ooo to Boyd, Benfield and 
Co. out of money voted for Navy services, in order 
to enable them to make good their instalments upon 
Omnium. He has admitted, too, that he advanced 
them ;^ioo,ooo in order to enable them to make a 
purchase for Government, at a time that he was 
informed by the Bank of their approaching ruin. A 
great part of that sum is now a debt to Government 
in consequence of their bankruptcy. This is a damned 
unpopular business — to advance publick money to 
two members of Parliament, who are bankrupts, too. 
It is a damned thing, too, for the friends and admirers 
of this once great man, to see him sent for by 



36 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [CH. II. 

Whitbread, and to hear him examined for anything like 
money irregularities. He is, I am certain, infinitely 
injured in the estimation of the House of Commons ; 
and then think of his situation in other respects — his 
right hand, Melville, lopped off — a superannuated 
Methodist at the head of the Admiralty, in order to 
catch the votes of Wilberforce and Co. now and then 
— all the fleets of France and Spain in motion — the 
finances at their utmost stretch — not an official person 
but Huskisson and Rose to do anything at their 
respective offices — publick business multiplied by 
opposition beyond all former example — and himself 
more averse to business daily — disunited with Adding- 
ton — having quite lost his own character and with a 
King perfectly mad and involving his ministry in the 
damnedest scrapes upon the subject of expense. . . . 
I know Pitt's friends think he can't go on, and they all 
wish him not to try it. You may guess how the 
matter is when I tell you that Abercromby, the 
member for Edinburgh, and Hope, the member for 
your county, have struck and fled, declaring they 
won't support Pitt any longer^ whom they both 
pronounce to be a damned rascal. My authority is 
James Abercomby,* and I will answer for the truth of 
these facts. 

". . . Bennet f has been here, and is now re- 
turned to Bath. He is most desirous to know you, 
and I promised I would write to you and mention him 
by way of introduction. He is most amiable, occa- 
sionally most boring, but at all times most upright 
and honorable. Make him introduce you to Lord and 
Lady Tankerville. The former is very fond of me ; 
he is a haughty, honorable man — has lived at one time 
in the heart of political leaders — was the friend of 
Lansdowne — has been in office several times, and is 
now a misanthrope, but very communicative and 
entertaining when he likes his man. His only remain- 
ing passion is for clever men, of which description 
he considers himself as one, tho' certainly unjustly. 
Lady Tankerville has perhaps as much merit as any 

* Hon. James Abercromby : Speaker 1835-9 '• created Lord 
Dunfermline 1839 : died 1858. 

t Hon. H. G, Bennet, M.P., 2nd son of 4th Earl of Tankerville. 



i8o5.] THE RADICALS MAKE THE PACE. 37 

woman in England.* She is, too, very clever, and has 
great wit ; but she, like her Lord, is depress'd and 
unhappy. They compose together the most striking 
libel upon the blessing of Fortune ; they are rich mucii 
beyond their desires or expenditure, they have the 
most elevated rank of their country, I know of nothing 
to disturb their happiness, and they are apparently 
the most miserable people I ever saw." 

"Thorndon [Lord Petre's], 28tli July, 1805. 

". . . You must know that I came out of the battle 
[of the session] very sick of it and of my leaders. 
It appears to me we had Pitt upon his very last legs, 
and might have destroyed him upon the spot ; instead 
of which, every opportunity for so doing was either 
lost or converted to a contrary purpose. Could the 
most inveterate enemy of Pitt have wished for any- 
thing better than to .find him lending ;^40,ooo, appro- 
priated by law to particular publick purposes, to two 
bankrupt merchant members of parliament who voted 
always with him ? f and could the most pertinacious 
derider of Fox's political folly have dared to conceive 
that Fox on such an occasion should acquit Pitt of all 
corruption, and should add likewise this sentiment 
to his opinion, that to have so detected him in corrup- 
tion would have made him (Fox) the most miserable 
of men? ... In short, between ourselves, my dear 
Doctor, I believe that Fox has no principle about 
publick money, and that he would give it away, if he 
had the power, in any way or for any job quite as dis- 
gusting as the worst of Pitt's. It is a painful con- 
clusion this to come to, and dreadfully diminishes 
one's parliamentary amusement. You can have no 
conception how feverish I became about Fox's conduct 
during this damned Athol business.| I talked at him 

* She was Emma, daughter and co-heiress ot Sir James Cole- 
brooke, Bart. 

t Boyd, Benfield and Co., to whom Pitt advanced the sum named 
out of money voted for Navy services. They were Government agents, 
and shortly afterwards went bankrupt. 

X The 3rd Duke of Athol having inherited the sovereignty of the 
Ifile of Man through his wife, daughter and heiress of his uncle, the 



'38 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. II. 

in private, and no doubt vexed him infernally; but 
this you'll say is but poor work, to be making myself 
enemies in the persons whose jobs I oppose, and to 
quarrel with my own friends for not opposing the 
jobs too. I must have some discussion with my con- 
science and my temper before the next campaign, to 
see whether I can't go on a little more smoothly, and 
without prejudice to my interest. ... I see a great 
deal of Windham. He has dined with me, but my 
opinion of him is not at all improved by my acquaint- 
ance with him. He is, at the same time, decidedly the 
most agreeable and witty in conversation of all these 
great men. . . . " 

The following notes are without date, but the 
allusion to Tom Sheridan's bride shows that they 
belong to the summer of 1805. 

R. B. Sheridan, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Richmond Hill, 
" Monday — the third day of Peace and Tranquillity. 

"My dear Creevey, 

"You must make my excuse to the Lord 
Mayor. Pray vouch that you should have brought me, 
but my cold is really so bad that I should infallibly 
lay myself up if I attempted to go. Here are pure 
air, quiet and innocence, and everything that suits me. 
"Fray; let me caution you not to expose yourself 
to the air after Dinner, as I find malicious people 
disposed to attribute to wine what was clearly the 
mere effect of the atmosphere. My last hour to your 
Ladies, as I am certainly going to die ; till when, 
however, 

" Yours truly, 

" R. B. S." 

-2nd Duke, sold the same in 1765 to the Government for ^70,000 and 
a pension of ;!{^2000 for their joint lives, but reserving their land rents. 
The 4th Duke, after two failures, succeeded in getting a bill through 
Parliament in 1805, settling one-fourth of the customs of the island 
upon him and the heirs general of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby. 
The bill was vigorously opposed, and Creevey denounced it as a job. 
The fourth of the customs was subsequently commuted for ;^409,ooo. 



1805.] THE SHERIDANS. 39 

" Thursday evening. 
" My DEAR Greevey, 

" If you don't leave town to-morrow, come 
and eat your mutton with me in George St. and meet 
Adam and McMahon, and more than all, my Son and 
Daughter. 

" Mrs. Greevey will excuse you at my request, and 
you will be a Piece of a Lion to have seen so early 
Mrs. T. S.,* whom I think lovely and engaging and 
interesting beyond measure, and, as far as I can judge, 
with a most superior understanding. 

" Yours ever, 

" R. B. S." 

" Grosvenor Place, Saturday morning. 
" My dear Mrs. Greevey, 

" I left Hester about two hours ago : she 
violently expects you. Remember we have a bed for 
you, a fishing rod for Greevey on Monday morning. 
If you will stay over Monday, Hester and Richmond 
Hill will make you quite well, and there are, not 
cockney, but classical Lions for Greevey to see. ..." 

It is difficult in these later days to realise the 
degree in which Royal personages were allowed, and 
even expected, to interfere with politics and the work 
of Parliament under the Hanoverian dynasty. It is 
notorious that, George III. having evinced his deter- 
mination to have a Tory Gabinet, the Heir Apparent 
chose his friends and counsellors from the Whig 
Opposition, trafficking in seats in Parliament as keenly 
as any boroughmonger of them all. Among others 
whom he sought to enlist in his Parliamentary party 

* Sheridan's only son, Tom [1775-1817], married Caroline 
Henrietta Callander in 1805. She was a celebrated beauty, wrote 
three novels which had some popularity, and was the mother of four 
sons and three beautiful daughters — Mrs. Blackwood, afterwards Lady 
Dufferin, and lastly, Countess of Gifford ; The Hon. Mrs. Norton, 
afterwards Lady Stirling-Maxwell of Keir ; and the youngest, the 
Duchess of Somerset, Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton Tournament. 



,40 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. II. 

was the gentle and erudite Samuel Romilly, whose 
name must ever be associated with the unwearying 
efforts he made to reform and mitigate the atrociously 
sanguinary penal code of England. Measured by the 
extent of the immediate success of these efforts, 
Romilly's influence upon the statute-book may be 
reckoned trifling, seeing that all he was able to effect 
against Lord Ellenborough and the House of Lords 
was the repeal, in 1812, of the law which prescribed 
the death penalty upon any soldier or mariner who 
should presume to beg, without permission from his 
commanding officer or a magistrate. Nevertheless 
the fruits of his life-work ripened after his untimely 
death by his own hand in 1818, and although he can- 
not be reckoned among the noisiest nor among the 
most profusely munificent philanthropists, the in- 
fluence of Samuel Romilly was indeed one of the 
most powerful and beneficent ever exerted in the 
cause of humanity 

Samuel Romilly, K.C., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Little Ealing, Sept. 23rd, 1805. 
" Dear Creevey, 

" I have just received your letter. ... It has 
indeed very much surprised me, and I am afraid my 
answer to it will occasion as much surprise in you. 
I cannot express to you how much flattered I am by 
the honor which the Prince of Wales does me. No 
event in the whole course of my life has been so 
gratifying to me. ... I have formed no resolution to 
keep out of Parliament ; on the contrary, it has long 
been my intention and is still my wish, to obtain 
a seat in the House, though not immediately.* If 
I had been a member from the beginning of the 

* He was elected member for Queenborough in 1806, on taking 
office as Solicitor-General in " All the Talents." 



i8o5.] ROMILLY DECLINES PARLIAMENT. 41 

present Parliament, my vote would have been uni- 
formly given in a way which I presume would have 
been agreeable to the Prince of Wales. . . . Upon 
all questions I should have voted with Mr. Fox ; and 
yet, with all this, I feel myself obliged to decline the 
offer which his Royal Highness has the great conde- 
scension to make me. . . . When I was a young man, 
a seat in Parliament was offered me. It was offered 
in the handsomest manner imaginable : no condition 
whatever was annexed to it : I was told that I was 
to be quite independent, and was to vote and act just 
as I thought proper. I could not, however, relieve 
myself from the apprehension that . . . the person to 
whom I owed the seat would consider me, without 
perhaps being quite conscious of it himself, as his 
representative in Parliament . . . and that I should 
have some other than my own reason and conscience 
to account to for my public conduct. ... In other 
respects, the offer was to me a most tempting one. 
I had then no professional business with which it 
would interfere. ... As a young man, I was vain and 
foolish enough to imagine that I might distinguish 
myself as a public speaker. I weighed the offer very 
maturely, and in the end I rejected it. I persuaded 
myself that (altho' that were not the case with others) 
it was impossible that the little talents which I 
possessed could ever be exerted with any advantage 
to the public, or any credit to myself, unless I came 
into Parliament quite independent, and answerable for 
my conduct to God and to my country alone. I had 
felt the temptation so strong that, in order to fortify 
myself against any others of the same kind, I formed 
to myself the unalterable resolution never, unless I 
held a public office, to come into Parliament but by 
a popular election, or by paying the common price 
for my seat. It is true that, when I formed this 
resolution, the possibility of a seat being offered me 
by the Prince of Wales had never entered into my 
thoughts, and that the rules which I had laid down to 
regulate my conduct ought perhaps to yield to such 
a circumstance as this. But yet I have so long acted 
on this resolution — the principles on which I formed 
it have become so much a part of the system of my 
life, and that life is now so far advanced, that I cannot 



42 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. II. 

convince myself — proud as I am of the distinction 
which his Royal Highness is willing to confer upon 
me, that I ought to accept it. The answer that I 
should wish to give to his Royal Highness is to 
express in the strongest terms my gratitude for the 
offer, but in the most respectful possible way to 
decline it; and at the same time to say that, if his 
R. H. thinks that my being in Parliament can be at 
all useful to the public, I shall be very glad to procure 
myself a seat the first opportunity that I can find. 
But the difficulty is to know how to give such an 
answer with propriety. I am fearful that it may be 
thought, in every way that it occurs to me to convey 
it, not sufficiently respectful to his R. H., and from 
this embarrassment I know not how to relieve myself. 
My only recourse is to trust that you will be able to 
do for me what I cannot do for myself . . ." 



Lord Henry Petty* to Mr. Creevey. 

"Dublin, Sept. 15th, 1805. 

"Dear Greevey, 

" I have for some time meditated writing to 
you, more, I confess, in the hope of procuring an 
answer, than with that of being able to communicate 
anything that can interest you from this country, 
altho' it affords me a great deal of amusement as a 
traveller. 

" The town of Dublin is full of fine buildings, fine 
streets, &c., but so ill placed and imperfectly finished 
as to give it the appearance of a great piece of patch- 
work, made up without skill and without attention. 
The Custom House is, however, an exception, and in 
every respect a noble edifice, in which there is no 
fault to be found except that old Beresfordt is 
sumptuously lodged in it. 

" The Union is become generally unpopular — more 

* Chancellor of the Exchequer in "All the Talents," 1806-7, and 
afterwards 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne. 

t The Right Hon. John Beresford [1737-1805], for many years 
chairman of the Revenue Board of Ireland, greatly relied on by Pitt 
in affairs of Irish administration. He died 5th November, 1805. 



i8o5.] IRISH AFFAIRS. 43 

SO, I think, than it deserves; but the Irish pride is 
wounded with the hauteur and neglect of the English 
Govt. Castlereagh's defeat was received with accla- 
mation by all classes here, and the city would have 
been illuminated if the Mayor had not prevented it, 
giving rather awkwardly as an excuse that he did not 
think the occasion of sufficient magnitude.* . . ." 

"Belfast; Oct. 24th, 1805. 

" Many thanks for your letter, which it would have 
given me pleasure to receive anywhere, but par- 
ticularly in the remote district of Munster where it 
found me, meditating upon the means of converting 
bogs into fields, rocks into quarries, and (not the least 
difficult of metamorphoses) Irish peasants into efficient 
labourers. We have, at the other extremity of the 
island, got into a more civilised region. Downshire 
is the Yorkshire of Ireland — the same universal 
appearance of wealth and industry, and even of neat- 
ness and comfort, prevails. 

"The shops here are full of prints and songs 
against Castlereagh, the leavings of the election, 
which has produced a general effect throughout 
Ireland. I am far from thinking the elections here 
will be so completely under the controll of Govt, as 
many of their adversaries, as well as friends, suppose. 
There is in most counties a rising spirit of indepen- 
dence, and the weight of the Catholic interest will be 
strongly felt. I have been myself strongly sollicited 
by a number of freeholders of the Co. of Kerry to 
offer myself at the gen. election, nor should I have 
the least doubt of success, if I had not other views, 

* Viscount Castlereagh [1769-1822] had been returned as Whig 
member for county Down in 1790, the election costing his father the 
almost incredible sum of _;^6o,ooo. He joined the Tories in 1795, 
became Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1797, and incurred the hatred 
of many of his countrymen by the ardour and success with which he 
forwarded Pitt's project of the Union, by buying up borough-mongers. 
But he was a strong advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation, and 
retired with Pitt when George III. set his veto upon the measure to 
which Pitt was pledged. He took office under Addington as President 
of the Board of Controul in 1802, and lost his seat on seeking 
re-election in 1805 when he was appointed War Minister under Pitt. 



44 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. II. 

and could bring myself to face the tumult of an Irish 
contest, which would not be, I think, the most amusing 
of recreations. 

" What great events are passing on the Continent. 
It is terrible to think that Pitt has so much of the fate 
of England and of Europe in his hands. I understand 
there has been some disagreement with Russia in 
consequence of the D. of Y. being intended for the 
command of a combined army of Russians and English, 
against which the Court of Petersburgh remonstrated. 
How disgracefull to be indebted to a foreign court for 
teaching us commonsense and our own interest at 
such a crisis ! " 

At Christmastide, 1805, Pitt received his death- 
blow. He had staked the existence of his country 
and the freedom of Europe upon the coalition of 
Austria, Russia, and England against Bonaparte and 
the destructive energies of France. But before these 
formidable allies could come into line, even before the 
British force had embarked for Germany, Napoleon 
swept through the Black Forest with 100,000 men. 
The Austrian commander Mack, posted on the Iller 
from Ulm to Memmingen, was surprised, taken in 
rear, and laid down his arms on 19th October, 
Werneck's corps having done the like the day before 
to Murat. By the end of the month the Austrian field 
force of 80,000 was no more. When rumours reached 
Pitt of the capitulation of Ulm — "Don't believe it," 
he exclaimed; "it is all a fiction." Next day the 
terrible news received confirmation ; the shock could 
not be repaired, even by the glorious intelligence 
which arrived four days later of the destruction of the 
French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. That, indeed, 
revived shattered hopes for the moment, but it was 
followed closely by the news of Austerlitz, where the 
second partner in the coalition had been crushed with 



i8o5.] ULM AND AUSTERLlTZ. 45 

a loss of 26,000 men. Not only was the coalition at 
an end, but its author passed quickly into the shadow 
of death. 



Hon, Charles Grey, M.P. {afterwards 2nd Earl Grey), 
to Mr. Creevey. 

"Howick, Dec. 29th, 1805. 

", . . Your details, which I had received from no 
other person, have left no doubt upon my mind. Of 
the delay of fresh intelligence I think nothing. I 
remember the same thing happened after the battle 
of Ulm, when the same inferences were drawn from 
it, and the opportunity taken to circulate the same 
reports of the defeat of the French. It seems Robert 
Ward sent to all the newspapers the paragraphs which 
you wd. see, asserting the Russian capitulation and 
Count Palfy's letters to be forgeries; and this, I am 
assured, without the least authority for doing so, 
except his own foolish belief All this, I agree with 
you, is as much calculated to hurt Pitt, when it is 
completely exposed, as the disasters themselves, and 
the folly of doing it is inconceivable. If the defeat 
of the 2nd * was as calamitous as I believe it to have 
been, it is nonsense to talk any more of Continental 
confederacies. The game is too desperate even for 
Pitt himself, desperate as he is ; and the King of 
Prussia certainly would not expose himself alone, 
which in the first instance he must do, to all the power 
and vengeance of France. I am more inclined to think 
that they [Pitt's Cabinet] really do flatter themselves 
against all evidence into a belief in these renewed 
battles and consequent changes of fortune. There is 
nothing too absurd for them in a military view. They 
are naturally confident and sanguine, and this is their 
last hope." 

* At Austerlitz. 



(46 ) 



CHAPTER III. 

1805. 

The following reminiscences were written by Mr. 
Creevey in the reign of William IV., but as they 
refer chiefly to his doings in 1805, they find their 
proper sequence in this place. At the time they were 
written Mr. Creevey's feelings towards George IV. 
had undergone a complete revulsion; but in 1805 he 
was full of enthusiasm for the Heir Apparent, upon 
whom the hopes of the whole Whig party were fixed. 

"It was in 1804 when I first began to take a part 
in the House of Commons, at which time the Prince 
of Wales was a most warm and active partizan of 
Mr. Fox and the Opposition. It was then that the 
Prince began first to notice me, and to stop his horse 
and talk with me when he met me in the streets ; but 
I recollect only one occasion, in that or the succeed- 
ing year, that I dined at Carlton House, and that 
was with a party of the Opposition, to whom he 
gave various dinners during that spring. On that 
occasion Lord Dundas and Calcraft sat at the top 
and bottom of the table, the Prince in the middle at 
one side, with the Duke of Clarence next to him ; 
Fox, Sheridan and about 30 opposition members of 
both Houses making the whole party. We walked 
about the garden before dinner without our hats. 

"The only thing that made an impression upon 
me in favour of the Prince that day (always except- 
ing his excellent manners and appearance of good 
humour) was his receiving a note during dinner 



i8o5.] THE HEIR APPARENT. 47. 

which he flung across the table to Fox and asked if 
he must not answer it, which Fox assented to ; and 
then, without the slightest fuss, the Prince left his 
place, went into another room and wrote an answer, 
which he brought to Fox for his approval, and when 
the latter said it was quite right, the Prince seemed 
delighted, which I thought very pretty in him, and a 
striking proof of Fox's influence over him. 

" During dinner he was very gracious, funny 
and agreeable, but after dinner he took to making 
speeches, and was very prosy as well as highly in- 
judicious. He made a long harangue in favour of 
the Catholics and took occasion to tell us that his 
brother William and himself were the only two of 
his family who were not Germans — this too in a 
company which was, most of them, barely known 
to him. Likewise I remember his halloaing to Sir 
Charles Bamfyld at the other end of the table, and 
asking him if he had seen Mother Windsor * lately. 
I brought Lord Howick f and George Walpole home 
at night in my coach, and so ended that day. 

"At the beginning of September, 1805, Mrs. 
Creevey and myself with her daughters went to 
Brighton to spend the autumn there, the Prince then 
living at the Pavilion. I think it was the first, or at 
furthest the second, day after our arrival, when my 
two eldest daughters % and myself were walking on 
the Steyne, and the Prince, who was sitting talking 
to old Lady Clermont, having perceived me, left her 
and came up to speak to me, when I presented my 
daughters to him. He was very gracious to us all 
and hoped he should see me shortly at dinner. In 
two or three days from this time I received an invi- 
tation to dine at the Pavilion. . . . Mrs. Fitzherbert, 
whom I had never been in a room with before, sat 
on one side of the Prince, and the Duke of Clarence 
on the other. ... In the course of the evening the 
Prince took me up to the card table where Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert was playing, and said — ' Mrs. Fitzherbert, I 
wish you would call upon Mrs. Creevey, and say 

* A notorious procuress in King's Place, 
t Afterwards Earl Grey, the Prime Minister. 
X His step-daughters, the Miss Ords. 



48 THE CREEVEY MPERS. [Ch. III. 

Irom me I shall be happy to see her here.' Mrs. 
Fitzherbert did call accordingly, and altho' she and 
Mrs. Creevey had never seen each other before, an 
acquaintance began that soon grew into a very sin- 
cere and agreeable friendship, which lasted the re- 
mainder of Mrs. Creevey's life. . . . 

". . . Immediately after this first visit from Mrs. 
Fitzherbert, Mrs. Creevey and her daughters became 
invited with myself to the Prince's parties at the 
Pavilion, and till the first week in January — a space 
of about four months — except a few days when the 
Prince went to see the King at Weymouth, and a 
short time that I was in London in November, there 
was not a day we were not at the Pavilion, I dining 
there always once or twice a week, Mrs. Creevey 
frequently dining with me likewise, but in the even- 
ing we were always there. 

"During these four months the Prince behaved 
with the greatest good humour as well as kindness to 
us all. He was always merry and full of his jokes, 
and any one would have said he was really a very 
happy man. Indeed I have heard him say repeatedly 
during that time that he never should be so happy 
when King, as he was then. 

"I suppose the Courts or houses of Princes are 
all alike in one thing, viz., that in attending them you 
lose your liberty. After one month was gone by, 
you fell naturally and of course into the ranks, and 
had to reserve your observations till you were asked 
for them. These royal invitations are by no means 
calculated to reconcile one to a Court. To be sent for 
half an hour before dinner, or perhaps in the middle 
of one's own, was a little too humiliating to be very 
agreeable. 

". . . Lord Hutchinson* was a great feature at 
the Pavilion. He lived in the house, or rather the 
one adjoining it, and within the grounds. . . . As a 
military man he was a great resource at that time, 
as we were in the midst of expectations about the 

* Brother of the ist Earl of Donoughmore ; a general officer, 
succeeded Sir Ralph Abercromby in command of the army in Egypt, 
and was raised to the peerage in 1801, with a pension of ^2000. Died 
in 1832. 



i8os.] LIFE AT THE PAVILION. 49 

Austrians and Buonaparte, and the battle which we 
all knew would so soon take place between them. It 
was a funny thing to hear the Prince, when the battle 
had taken place, express the same opinion as was 
given in the London Government newspapers, that it 
was all over with the French — that they were all sent 
to the devil, and the Lord knows what. Maps were 
got out to satisfy everybody as to the precise ground 
where the battle had been fought and the route by 
which the French had retreated. While these opera- 
tions were going on in one window of the Pavilion, 
Lord Hutchinson took me privately to another, when 
he put into my hand his own private dispatch from 
Gordon, then Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, 
giving him the true account of the battle of Auster- 
litz, with the complete victory of the French. This 
news, unaccountable as it may appear, was repeated 
day after day at the Pavilion for nearly a week ; and 
when the truth began at last to make its appearance 
in the newspapers, the Prince puts them all in his 
pockets, so that no paper was forthcoming at the 
Pavilion, instead of half-a-dozen, the usual number. 
. . . We used to dine pretty punctually at six, the 
average number being about sixteen. . . . Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert always dined there, and mostly one other 
lady — Lady Downshire very often, sometimes Lady 
Clare or Lady Berkeley or Mrs. Creevey. Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert was a great card-player, and played every 
night. The Prince never touched a card, but was 
occupied in talking to his guests, and very much in 
listening to and giving directions to the band. At 
12 o'clock punctually the band stopped, and sand- 
wiches and wine and water handed about, and shortly 
after the Prince made a bow and we all dispersed. 

" I had heard a great deal of the Prince's drinking, 
but, during the time that I speak of, I never saw him 
the least drunk but once, and I was rnyself pretty 
much the occasion of it. We were dining at the 
Pavilion, and poor Fonblanque, a dolorous fop of a 
lawyer, and a member of Parliament too, was one of 
the guests. After drinking some wine, I could not 
resist having some jokes at Fonblanque's expense, 
which the Prince encouraged greatly. I went on 
and invented stories about speeches Fonblanque had 



50 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

made in Parliament, which were so pathetic as to 
have affected his audience to tears, all of which in- 
ventions of mine Fonblanque denied to be true with 
such overpowering gravity that the Prince said he 
should die of it if I did not stop. ... In the evening, 
at about ten or eleven o'clock, he said he would go to 
the ball at the Castle, and said I should go with him. 
So I went in his coach, and he entered the room with 
his arm through mine, everybody standing and getting 
upon benches to see him. He was certainly tipsey, 
and so, of course, was I, but not much, for I well re- 
member his taking me up to Mrs. Creevey and her 
daughters, and telling them he had never spent a 
pleasanter day in his life, and that ' Creevey had been 
very great' He used to drink a great quantity of 
wine at dinner, and was very fond of making any 
newcomer drunk by drinking wine with him very 
frequently, always recommending his strongest wines, 
and at last some remarkably strong old brandy which 
he called Diabolino. 

" It used to be the Duke of Norfolk's custom to 
come over every year from Arundel to pay his 
respects to the Prince and to stay two days at 
Brighton, both of which he always dined at the 
Pavilion. In the year 1804, upon this annual visit, 
the Prince had drunk so much as to be made very 
seriously ill by it, so that in 1805 (the year that I was 
there) when the Duke came, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who 
was always the Prince's best friend, was very much 
afraid of his being again made ill, and she persuaded 
the Prince to adopt different stratagems to avoid 
drinking with the Duke. I dined there on both days, 
and letters were brought in each day after dinner to 
the Prince, which he affected to consider of great im- 
portance, and so went out to answer them, while the 
Duke of Clarence went on drinking with the Duke 
of Norfolk. But on the second day this joke was 
carried too far, and in the evening the Duke of 
Norfolk showed he was affronted. The Prince took 
me aside and said — ' Stay after everyone is gone to- 
night. The Jockey's got sulky, and I must give him 
a broiled bone to get him in good humour again.' So 
of course I stayed, and about one o'clock the Prince 
of Wales and Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Norfolk 




MRS. FITZHERBERT. 



[To face p. 50. 



iSosO SHERIDAN. 5 1 

and myself sat down to a supper of broiled bones, the 
result of which was that, having fallen asleep myself, 
I was awoke by the sound of the Duke of Norfolk's 
snoring. I found the Prince of Wales and the Duke 
of Clarence in a very animated discussion as to the 
particular shape and make of the wig worn by 
George II. 

"Among other visitors to the Pavilion came 
Sheridan, with whom I was then pretty intimate, 
though perhaps not so much so as afterwards. I 
was curious to see him and the Prince daily in this 
way, considering the very great intimacy there had 
been between them for so many years. Nothing, 
certainly, could be more creditable to both parties 
than their conduct. I never saw Sheridan during the 
period of three weeks (I think it was) take the least 
more liberty in the Prince's presence than if it had 
been the first day he had ever seen him. On the 
other hand, the Prince always showed by his manner 
that he thought Sheridan a man that any prince 
might be proud of as his friend. 

" So much for manners ; but I was witness to a 
kind of altercation between them in which Sheridan 
could make no impression on the Prince. The latter 
had just given Sheridan the office of Auditor of the 
Duchy of Cornwall, worth about £1200 per annum, 
and Sheridan was most anxious that the Prince 
should transfer the appointment to his son, Tom 
Sheridan, who was just then married. What Sheri- 
dan's object in this was, cannot be exactly made out ; 
whether it really was affection for Tom, or whether 
it was to keep the profit of the office out of the reach 
of his creditors, or whether it was to have a young 
life in the patent instead of his own. Whichever of 
these objects he had in view, he pursued it with the 
greatest vehemence ; so much so, that I saw him cry 
bitterly one night in making his supplication to the 
Prince. The latter, however, was not to be shaken 
... he resisted the demand upon the sole ground 
that Sheridan's reputation was such, that it made it 
not only justifiable, but most honourable to him, the 
Prince, to make such a selection for the office. . . . 

" This reminds me of another circumstance 
relating to the same office when in Sheridan's 



52 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [CH. III. 

possession. In the year 1810, Mrs. Creevey, her 
daughters and myself were spending our summer at 
Richmond. Sheridan and his wife (who was a rela- 
tion and particular friend of Mrs. Creevey's) came 
down to dine and stay all night with us. There being 
no other person present after dinner, when the ladies 
had left the room, Sheridan said : — 

"*A damned odd thing happened to me this 
morning, and Hester [Mrs. Sheridan] and I have 
agreed in coming down here to-day that no human 
being shall ever know of it as long as we live ; so 
that nothing but my firm conviction that Hester is at 
this moment telling it to Mrs. Creevey could induce 
me to tell it to you.' 

"Then he said that the money belonging to this 
office of his in the Duchy being always paid into 
Biddulph's or Cox's bank (I think it was) at Charing 
Cross, it was his habit to look in there. There was 
one particular clerk who seemed always so fond of 
him, and so proud of his acquaintance, that he every 
now and then cajoled him into advancing him ;^io or 
;^20 more than his account entitled him to. . . . That 
morning he thought his friend looked particularly 
smiling upon him, so he said : — 

" ' 1 looked in to see if you could let me have ten 
pounds.' 

" ' Ten pounds ! ' replied the clerk ; ' to be sure I 
can, Mr. Sheridan. You've got my letter, sir, have 
you not?' 

" ' No,' said Sheridan, ' what letter ? ' 

" It is literally true that at this time and for many, 
many years Sheridan never got twopenny-post letters,* 
because there was no money to pay for them, and the 
postman would not leave them without payment. 

" ' Why, don't you know what has happened, sir ? ' 
asked the clerk. 'There is ^^1300 paid into your 
account. There has been a very great fine paid for 
one of the Duchy estates, and this ;^i300 is your per- 
centage as auditor.' 

* The charge at this time for letters sent and delivered within the 
metropolitan district was only 2^., payable by the recipient ; but 
country letters were charged from lod, to is. 6d. and more, according 
to distance. 



i8os.] SHERIDAN. S3 

" Sheridan was, of course, very much set up with 
this ;^i30o, and, on the very next day upon leaving us, 
he took a house at Barnes Terrace, where he spent 
all his ;^i300. At the end of two or three months at 
most, the tradespeople would no longer supply him 
without being paid, so he was obliged to remove. 
What made this folly the more striking was that 
Sheridan had occupied five or six different houses in 
this neighbourhood at different periods of his life, and 
on each occasion had been driven away literally by 
non-payment of his bills and consequent want of food 
for the house. Yet he was as full of his fun during 
these two months as ever he could be — gave dinners 
perpetually and was always on the road between 
Barnes and London, or Barnes and Oatlands (the 
Duke of York's), in a large job coach upon which 
he would have his family arms painted. . . . 

". . . As I may not have another opportunity of 
committing to paper what little I have of perfect 
recollection of what Sheridan told me in our walks at 
Brighton respecting his early life, and as he certainly 
was a very extraordinary man, I may as well insert 
it here. 

" He was at school at Harrow, and, as he told me, 
never had any scholastic fame while he was there, 
nor did he appear to have formed any friendships 
there. He said he was a very low-spirited boy, much 
given to crying when alone, and he attributed this very 
much to being neglected by his father, to his being 
left without money, and often not taken home at the 
regular holidays. From Harrow he went to live in 
John Street, out of Soho Square, whether with his 
father or some other instructor, I forget, but he dwelt 
upon the two years he spent there as those in which 
he acquired all the reading and learning he had upon 
any subject. 

" At the end of this time his father determined to 
open a kind of academy at Bath — the masters or in- 
structors to be Sheridan the father, his eldest son 
Charles, and our Sheridan, who was to be rhetorical 
usher. According to his account, however, the whole 
concern was presently laughed off the stage, and then 
Sheridan described his happiness as beginning. He 
danced with all the women at Bath, wrote sonnets 



54 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

and verses in praise of some, satires and lampoons 
upon others, and in a very short time became the 
established wit and fashion of the place. 

" It was at this period of his life he fell in love 
with Miss Lindley, whom he afterwards married, but 
she was carried off by her father at that time to a 
convent in France, to be kept out of his way. Then 
it was he became embroiled with Mr. Mathews, who 
was likewise a lover of Miss Lindley, as well as her 
libeller. Sheridan fought two duels with Mr. Mathews 
upon this subject, both times with swords. The first 
was in some hotel or tavern in Henrietta St., Covent 
Garden, when Mathews was disarmed and begged his 
life. Upon Mr. Mathew's return to Bath, Sheridan 
used his triumph with so little moderation, that Mr. 
Mathews left Bath to live in Wales; but soon he was 
induced to believe that he had compromised his 
honour by quitting Bath and leaving his reputation at 
the mercy of Sheridan. Accordingly, a messenger 
arrived from him to Sheridan, with a written certifi- 
cate in favour of Mathews's undoubted honour in the 
former aff'air, to be signed by Sheridan, or else the 
messenger was to deliver him a second challenge. 

" Sheridan preferred the latter course of proceed- 
ing, and the duel was fought at King's Weston (if I 
recollect right). According to Sheridan's account, 
never was anything so desperate. Sheridan's sword 
broke in a point blank thrust into Mathews's chest ; 
upon this he closed, and they both fell, Mathews 
uppermost ; but, in falling, his sword broke likewise, 
sticking into the earth and snapping. However, he 
drew the sharp end out of the ground, and with this 
he stabbed Sheridan in the face and body, over and 
over again, till it was thought he must die. Sheridan 
named both the seconds, but I forget them. He said 
they were both cut for ever afterwards for not inter- 
fering. He said, likewise, there was a regular pro- 
ceeding before the Mayor of Bristol, on the ground 
that Mr. Mathews had worn some kind of armour to 
protect him, which broke Sheridan's sword. . . . Sheri- 
dan was taken to some hotel at Bath, where his life 
for some time was despaired of, but ... he rallied and 
recovered. 

" He then lived for some time at Waltham Cross, 



i8os.] SHERIDAN'S MARRIAGE. 55 

and was in bad health, but used to steal up to town to 
see and hear Miss Lindley in publick, though he was 
under an engagement with her family not to pursue 
her any more in private. At length, however, they 
met, and eventually were married. Miss Lindley's 
reputation at this time was so great, that her engage- 
ments for the year were ;^5ooo. This resource, how- 
ever, Sheridan would not listen to her receiving any 
longer, altho' he himself had not a single farthing. 
He said she might sing to oblige the King or Queen, 
but to receive money while she was his wife was quite 
out of the question. Upon which old Lindley, her 
father, said this might do very well for him — Mr. Sheri- 
dan — but that for him — Mr. Lindley — it was a very 
hard case ; that his daughter had always been a very 
good daughter to him, and very generous to him out 
of the funds she gained by her profession, and that 
it was very hard upon him to be cut off all at once 
from this supply. This objection was disposed of by 
Sheridan in the following manner. 

"Miss Lindley had ^^3000 of her own, of which 
Sheridan gave her father ;i^2000. With the remaining 
;^iooo, the only fortune Mr. and Mrs, Sheridan began 
the world with, he took a cottage at Slough, where 
they lived, he said, most happily, a gig and horse 
being their principal luxury, with a man to look after 
both the master and his horse. But by the end, or 
before the end, of the year, the ;^iooo was drawing 
rapidly to a finish, and then it was that Sheridan 
thought of play-writing as a pecuftiary resource, and 
he wrote The Rivals. Having got an introduction to 
the theatre, he took his play there, and finally was 
present to see it acted, but would not let Mrs. Sheri- 
dan come up from Slough for the same purpose. The 
Rivals, upon its first performance, was damned ; when 
Sheridan got to Slough and told his wife of it she said : 

" ' My dear Dick, I am delighted. I always knew 
it was impossible you could make anything by writing 
plays ; so now there is nothing for it but my begin- 
ning to sing publickly again, and we shall have as 
much money as we like.' 

" ' No,' said Sheridan, ' that shall never be. I see 
where the fault was ; the play was too long, and the 
parts were badly cast,' 



56 _ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

" So he altered and curtailed the play, and had 
address or interest enough to get the parts newly cast. 
At the expiration of six weeks it was acted again, and 
with unbounded applause. His fame as a dramatick 
writer was settled from that time. When it was he 
became proprietor of Drury Lane Theatre, or how it 
was accomplished, I did not learn from him, but it was 
the only property he ever possessed, and, with the 
commonest discretion on his part, would have made 
him a most afQuent man. 

" Sheridan's talents, displayed in his plays, pro- 
cured him very shortly both male and female admirers 
among the higher orders. The families of Lord 
Coventry and Lord Harrington he spoke of as his first 
patrons. When it was he begun with politicks, I 
don't recollect, but he was a great parliamentary re- 
former the latter end of the American war, and one of 
a committee of either five or seven (I forget which 
number) who used to sit regularly at the Mansion 
House upon this subject. 

" In 1780, the year of a general election, his object 
was to get into Parliament if possible, and he was 
going to make a trial at Wootton-Bassett. The night 
before he set out, being at Devonshire House and 
everybody talking about the general election. Lady 
Cork* asked Sheridan about kis plans, which led to 
her saying that she had often heard her brother 
Monckton say he thought an opposition man might 
come in for Stafford, and that if, in the event of Sheri- 
dan failing at Wootton, he liked to try his chance at 
Stafford, she would give him a letter of introduction 
to her brother. 

" This was immediately done. Sheridan went to 
Wootton-Bassett, where he had not a chance. Then 
he went to Stafford, produced Lady Cork's letter, 
offered himself as a candidate, and was elected. For 
Stafford he was member till 1806 — six-and-twenty 
years. I remember asking him if he could fix upon 
any one point of time in his life that w^as decidedly 
happier than all the rest, and he said certainly — it was 
after dinner the day of this first election for Stafford, 

* Second wife of the 7th Earl, youngest daughter of the ist Vis- 
count Galway. 



i8os.] FROLICS AT BRIGHTON. 57 

when he stole away by himself to speculate upon 
those prospects of distinguishing himself which had 
been opened to him. 

" I did not hear any further of his own history 
from himself than this first getting into parliament. 
It has been a constant subject of regret to me that 
I did not put down at the time all he told me, be- 
cause it was much more than I have stated ; but I 
feel confident my memory is correct in what I have 
written, 

"To return to Sheridan at Brighton in the year 
1805. His ^oint of diff'erence with the Prince being 
at an end, bheridan entered into whatever fun was 
going on at the Pavilion as if he had been a boy, tho' 
he was then 55 years of age. Upon one occasion he 
came into the drawing-room disguised as a police 
officer to take up the Dowager Lady Sefton * for 
playing at some unlawful game ; and at another time, 
when we had a phantasmagoria at the Pavilion, and 
were all shut up in perfect darkness, he continued to 
seat himself upon the lap of Madame Gerobtzoff" [?], a 
haughty Russian dame, who made row enough for 
the whole town to hear her. 

"The Prince, of course, was delighted with all 
this ; but at last Sheridan made himself so ill with 
drinking, that he came to us soon after breakfast one 
day, saying he was in a perfect fever, desiring he 
might have some table beer, and declaring that he 
would spend that day with us, and send his excuses 
by Bloomfield for not dining at the Pavilion. I felt 
his pulse, and found it going tremendously, but in- 
stead of beer, we gave him some hot white wine, of 
which he drank a bottle, I remember, and his pulse 
subsided almost instantly. . . . After dinner that day 
he must have drunk at least a bottle and a half of 
wine. In the evening we were all going to the 
Pavilion, where there was to be a ball, and Sheridan 
said he would go home, i.e., to the Pavilion (where he 
slept) and would go quietly to bed. He desired me 
to tell the Prince, if he asked me after him, that he 
was far from well, and was gone to bed. 

* Isabella, daughter of 2nd Earl of Harrington, and widow of the 
9th Viscount and ist Earl of Sefton. 



58 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

" So when supper was served at the Pavilion about 
12 o'clock, the Prince came up to me and said : 

" ' What the devil have you done with Sheridan 
to-day, Creevey? I know he has been dining with you, 
and I have not seen him the whole day.' 

" I said he was by no means well and had gone to 
bed ; upon which the Prince laughed heartily, as if he 
thought it all fudge, and then, taldng a bottle of claret 
and a glass, he put them both in my hands and said : 

'' ' Now Creevey, go to his bedside and tell him I'll 
drink a glass of wine with him, and if he refuses, I 
admit he must be damned bad indeed.' 

" I would willingly have excused myself on the 
score of his being really ill, but the Prince would not 
believe a word of it, so go I must. When I entered 
Sheridan's bedroom, he was in bed, and, his great fine 
eyes being instantly fixed upon me, he said : — 

" ' Come, I see this is some joke of the Prince, and 
I am not in a state for it.' 

" I excused myself as well as I could, and as he 
would not touch the wine, I returned without pressing 
it, and the Prince seemed satisfied he must be ill. 

"About two o'clock, however, the supper having 
been long over, and everybody engaged in dancing, 
who should I see standing at the door but Sheridan, 
powdered as white as snow, as smartly dressed as 
ever he could be from top to toe. ... I joined him 
and expressed my infinite surprise at this freak of his. 
He said : 

" * Will you go with me, my dear fellow, into the 
kitchen, and let me see if I can find a bit of supper.' 

" Having arrived there, he began to play off his 
cajolery upon the servants, saying if he was the Prince 
they should have much better accommodation, &c., &c., 
so that he was surrounded by supper of all kinds, 
every one waiting upon him. He ate away and drank 
a bottle of claret in a minute, returned to the ball- 
room, and when I left it between three and four he 
was dancing. 

" In the beginning of November, as Sheridan was 
returning to London, and I was going there for a 
short time, he proposed our going together, and 
nothing would serve him but that we must be two 
days on the road : that nothing was so foolish as 



i8os.] WARREN HASTINGS. 59 

hurrying oneself in such short days, and nothing so 
pleasant as living at an inn ; that the Cock at Sutton 
was an excellent place to dine and sleep at ; that he 
himself was very well known there, and would write 
and have a nice little dinner ready for our arrival. 

"We set off in a job chaise of his, Edwards the 
box keeper of Drury Lane being on the dicky box, 
for he always acted as Sheridan's valet when he left 
London. Before we had travelled many miles, having 
knocked my foot against some earthenware vessel in 
the chaise, I asked Sheridan what it could be, and he 
replied he dared say it was something Edwards was 
taking to his wife. Arriving in the evening at Sutton, 
I found there was not a soul in the house who had 
ever seen Sheridan before ; that his letter had never 
arrived, and that no dinner was ready for us. I heard 
him muttering on about its being an extraordinary 
mistake, that his particular friend was out of the way, 
and so forth, but that he knew the house to be an 
excellent one, and no where that you could have a 
nicer little dinner. He went fidgetting in and out of 
the room, without exciting the least suspicion on my 
part, till dinner was announced. Then I found his 
fun had been to bring the dinner with him from the 
Pavilion. The bowl I had kicked contained the soup, 
and there were the best fish, woodcocks and every- 
thing else, with claret and sherry and port all from 
the same place. 

"Among other persons who came to pay their 
respects to the Prince during the Autumn of 1805 was 
Mr. Hastings,* whom I had never seen before excepting 
at his trial in Westminster Hall. He and Mrs. Hastings 
came to the Pavilion, and I was present when the Prince 
introduced Sheridan to him, which was curious, con- 
sidering that Sheridan's parliamentary fame had been 
built upon his celebrated speech against Hastings. 
However, he lost no time in attempting to cajole old 
Hastings, begging him to believe that any part he had 
ever taken against him was purely political, and that 
no one had a greater respect for him than himself, &c., 
&c., upon which old Hastings said with great gravity 
that 'it would be a great consolation to him in his 

* Warren Hastings. 



6o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

declining days if Mr. Sheridan would make that 
sentence more publick;' but Sheridan was obliged to 
mutter and get out of such an engagement as well as 
he could. 

" Another very curious person I saw a great deal 
of this autumn of 1805, sometimes at the Pavilion, 
sometimes at Mrs. Clowes's, was Lord Thurlow, to 
whom the Prince always behaved with the most 
marked deference and attention. I had never seen 
him but once before, and the occasion was an extra- 
ordinary one. Lady Oxford, who then had a house at 
Ealing (it was in 1801) had, by Lord Thurlow's desire, 
I believe, at all events with his acquiescence, invited 
Horne-Tooke to dinner to meet him. Lord Thurlow 
never had seen him since he had prosecuted him when 
Attorney-General for a libel in 1774 (I believe it was), 
when the greatest bitterness was shown on both sides, 
so that the dinner was a meeting of great curiosity to 
us who were invited to it. Sheridan was there and 
Mrs. Sheridan, the late Lord Camelford, Sir Francis 
Burdett, Charles Warren, with several others and 
myself. Tooke evidently came prepared for a display, 
and as I had met him repeatedly, and considered his 
powers of conversation as surpassing those of any 
person I had ever seen, in point of skill and dexterity 
(and, if at all necessary, in lying), I took for granted old 
grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his 
topsail to him. But it seemed as if the very look and 
voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses, and 
certainly nothing could be much more formidable. 
So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and tho' 
not a drinker, was very drunk. But all would not do ; 
he was perpetually trying to distinguish himself, and 
Thurlow constantly laughing at him. 

"In the autumn of 1805, Thurlow had declined 
greatly in energy from the time I refer to. It was the 
year only before his death. He used to read or ride 
out in the morning, and his daughter Mrs. Brown, and 
Mr. Sneyd, the clergyman of Brighton, occupied them- 
selves in procuring any stranger or other person who 
they thought would be agreeable to the old man to 
dine with him, the party being thus 10 or 12 every 
day, or more. I had the good fortune to be occasion- 
ally there with Mrs, Creevey. . . . However rough 




LORD THURLOW. 



\Toface p. 60. 



i8o5.] LORD THURLOW. 6 1 

Thurlow might be with men, he was the politest man 
in the world to ladies. Two or three hours were 
occupied by him at dinner in laying wait for any 
unfortunate slip or ridiculous observation that might 
be made by any of his male visitors, whom, when 
caught, he never left hold of, till I have seen the sweat 
run down their faces from the scrape they had got into. 

" Having seen this property of his, I took care, of 
course, to keep clear of him, and have often enjoyed 
extremely seeing the figures which men have cut who 
came with the evident intention of shewing off before 
him. Curran, the Irish lawyer, was a striking instance 
of this. I dined with him at Thurlow's one day, and 
Thurlow just made as great a fool of him as he did 
formerly of Tooke. 

"Thurlow was always dressed in a full suit of 
cloaths of the old fashion, great cuffs and massy 
buttons, great wig, long ruffles, &c. ; the black eye- 
brows exceeded in size any I have ever seen, and his 
voice, tho' by no means devoid of melody, was a kind 
of rolling, murmuring thunder. He had great reading, 
particularly classical, and was a very distinguished, as 
well as most daring, converser. I never heard of any 
one but Mr. Hare who had fairly beat him, and this I 
know from persons who were present, Hare did more 
than once, at Carlton House and at Woburn. 

" Sir Philip Francis, whom I knew intimately, and 
who certainly was a remarkably quick and clever man, 
was perpetually vowing vengeance against Thurlow, 
and always fixing his time during this autumn of 1805 
for 'making an example of the old ruffian,' either at 
the Pavilion or wherever he met him ; but I have seen 
them meet afterwards, and tho' Thurlow was always 
ready for battle, Francis, who on all other occasions 
was bold as a lion, would never stir. 

"The grudge he owed to Thurlow was certainly 
not slightly grounded. When Francis and Generals 
Clavering and Monson were sent to India in 1773, 
to check Hastings in his career, their conduct was 
extolled to the skies by our party in parliament, while, 
on the other hand, Lord Thurlow in the House of 
Lords said that the greatest misfortune to India and 
to England was that the ship which carried these 
three gentlemen out had not gone to the bottom. . . . 



62 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

". . . During the autumn of 1805 the Prince was a 
very great politician. He considered himself as the 
Head of the Whig Party, and was perpetually at work 
cajoling shabby people, as he thought, into becoming 
Whigs out of compliment to him, but who ate his 
dinners and voted with the Ministers just the same. 
I remember dining with him at George Johnstone's at 
Brighton — the Duke of Clarence, old Thurlow, Lord 
and Lady Bessborough and a very large party, of 
which Suza, the Portuguese Ambassador was one. 
After dinner the Prince, addressing himself to Suza, 
described himself as being the Head of the great Whig 
party in England, and then entered at great length 
upon the merit of Whig principles, and the great glory 
it was to him, the Prince, to be the head of a party 
who advocated such principles. Finally, he appealed 
to Suza for his opinion upon that subject; but the 
Portuguese was much too wary to be taken in. He 
thanked the Prince with great force, ability and pro- 
priety for his condescension in giving him the infor- 
mation he had done, but, as he added, the subject was 
an entirely new one to him, he prayed his Royal 
Highness would have the goodness to excuse him 
giving an opinion upon it, till he had considered it 
more maturely. 

" It seemed at that time the Prince's politicks were 
almost always uppermost with him . . . Upon one 
occasion I remember dining with the Prince at Lady 
Downshire's, Lord Winslow and different people being 
there. After dinner he said to me privately : ' Creevey, 
you must go home with me.' So when he went he 
took me in his coach, and when we got to the Pavilion 
he said : ' Now, Creevey, you and I must go over the 
House of Commons together, and see who are our 
friends and who are our enemies.' Accordingly, he 
got his own red book, and we went over the House 
of Commons name by name. He had one mark for a 
friend and another for an enemy, and of course every 
member of the Government who was then in the 
House of Commons had the enemy's mark put against 
his name. . . . Having made all these marks himself, 
he gave me the book, and told me to take it home with 
me. At this time Lord Castlereagh had just lost his 
election for the county of Down, entirely from Lady 



i8o5.] THE DUKE OF YORK. 63 

Downshire's opposition. She had gone over to 
Ireland expressly for that purpose. 

" When the Prince returned from a visit of two or 
three days to the King at Weymouth, he was very 
indiscreet in talking at his table about the King's 
infirmities, there being such people as Miles Peter 
Andrews and Sir George Shee present, in common 
with other spies and courtiers. So when he described 
the King as so blind that he had nearly fallen into 
some hole at Lord Dorchester's, I said — ' Poor man, 
Sir!' in a very audible and serious tone, and he 
immediately took the hint and stopt. 

" Upon another occasion the Duke of York* came 
to the Pavilion. It was some military occasion — a 
review of the troops, I believe — and there was a great 
assemblage of military people there. Nothing could 
be so cold and formal as the Prince's manner to the 
Duke. As he was coming up the room towards the 
Prince, the Prince said to me in an undertone — ' Do 
you know the Duke of York.' On my replying — 'No, 
sir,' he said — ' He's a damned bad politician, but I'll 
introduce you to him,' and this he did, with great form. 

" Amongst other things, the Prince took to a violent 
desire of bringing Romilly into Parliament, and having 
found that I was well acquainted with him, he com- 
missioned me to write to Romilly, and to offer him a 
seat in the House of Commons in the Prince's name. 
This of course I did, but, in so doing, I did not hesitate 
to express my own suspicions as to the reality of the 
thing offered, nor did I withhold my opinion as to 
Romilly's doing best to decline it, could it even be 
accomplished. I begged him, however, to write me 
two answers, one for the Prince's inspection, and the 
other for my own private instruction, if he was 
desirous the project should be entertained at all. 
Romilly, however, as I was sure he would, wrote me 
an answer that was an unequivocal, tho' of course 
very grateful, refusal of the favour offered him.f 

" Having mentioned a dinner I had at Johnstone's 
in Brighton in 1805, I can't help adverting to what 
took place that day. The late King (George IV.) and 

* Commander-in-chief, 
t See p. 40, supra. 



64 ' THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [CH. III. 

the present one (William IV.) both dined there, and it 
so happened that there was a great fight on the same 
day between the Chicken* and Gully.f The Duke of 
Clarence was present at it, and as the battle, from the 
interference of Magistrates, was fought at a greater 
distance from Brighton than was intended, the Duke 
was very late, and did not arrive till dinner was nearly 
over. I mention the case on account of the change 
that has since taken place as to these parties. Gully 
was then a professional prize-fighter from the ranks, 
and fighting for money. Since that time, the Duke of 
Clarence has become Sovereign of the country, and 
Gully has become one of its representatives in par- 
liament. As Gully always attends at Court, as well 
as in the House of Commons, it would be curious to 
know whether the King, with his accurate recollec- 
tion of all the events of his life, and his passion for 
adverting to them, has ever given to Gully any hint 
of that day's proceedings. There is, to be sure, one 
reason why he should not, for Gully was beaten that 
day by the Chicken, as I have reason to remember ; for 
Lord Thurlow and myself being the two first to arrive 
before dinner, he asked if I had heard any account of 
the fight. I repeated what I had heard in the streets, 
viz. that Gully had given the Chicken so tremendous 
a knock-down blow at starting, that the latter had 
never answered to him ; so when the Duke of Clarence 
came and told us that Gully was beat, old Thurlow 
growled out from his end of the table — ' Mr. Creevey, 
I think an action would lie against you by the Chicken 
for taking away his character.' 

" Lord Thurlow was a great drinker of port wine, 
and Johnstone, who was the most ridiculous toady of 
great men, said to him that evening — * I am afraid, my 
lord, the port wine is not so good as I could wish ; * 

* Heniy Pearce, the " Game Chicken," champion of England. 

t John Gully [1783-1863], son of a publican and butcher, made 
his debut in the prize-ring in 1805, and was recognised as virtual, 
though not formal, champion after Pearce, the Game Chicken, 
retired at the end of that year. In 1808 he became a bookmaker and 
publican. He made a good deal of money ; became a successful 
owner of racehorses; and, having purchased Ackworth Park, near 
Pontefract, represented that borough in Parliament from 1832 till 1837. 



i8o5.] SOCIETY AT BRIGHTON. 6$ 

upon which old Thurlow growled again — *I have 
tasted better ! '" 

The foregoing narrative will enable the reader to 
understand many of the allusions in the following 
letters written by Mrs. Creevey from Brighton to her 
husband while he was attending to his parliamentary 
duties. It must be understood also that Creevey was 
quite sensible of the advantage which might be ex- 
pected in regard to his own political prospects from 
the favour he had found in the royal leader of the 
Whigs. The King's madness might return on any 
day; the Prince of Wales would become Regent, 
and nobody doubted that, so soon as he had the 
power, he would dismiss the Tory Ministers of his 
father. Mrs. Creevey, therefore, loyally played up 
to her husband's hand, and, like her lord, continued 
charitably blind to the character and habits of their 
master. Like all who ever made her acquaintance, 
both Mr. and Mrs. Creevey speak enthusiastically of 
the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom the Prince had 
married in 1785. 

Mrs. Creevey to Mr. Creevey in London. 

"Brighton, Oct. 29th, 1805. 

". . . Oh, this wicked Pavillion! we were there 
till \ past one this morng., and it has kept me in bed 
with the headache till 12 to-day. . . . The invitation 
did not come to us till 9 o'clock : we went in Lord 
Thurlow's carriage, and were in fear of being too late ; 
but the Prince did not come out of the dining-room 
till II. Till then our only companions were Lady 
Downshire and Mr. and Miss Johnstone — the former 
very goodnatured and amiable. ... When the Prince 
appeared, I instantly saw he had got more wine than 
usual, and it was still more evident that the German 
Baron was extremely drunk. The Prince came up and 



66 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

sat by me- — introduced McMahon to me, and talked a 
great deal about Mrs. Fitzherbert — said she had been 
* delighted ' with my note, and wished much to see me. 
He asked her * When ? '—and he said her answer was 
—'Not till jyou are gone, and. I can see her comfortably.* 
I suppose this might be correct, for Mac told me he 
had been 'worrying her to death' all the morning. 

"It appears to me I have found a true friend in 
Mac* He is even more foolish than I expected; but 
I shall be disappointed if, even to you, he does not 
profess himself my devoted admirer. 

"Afterwards the Prince led all the party to the 
table where the maps lie, to see him shoot with an 
air-gun at a target placed at the end of the room. 
He did it very skilfully, and wanted all the ladies to 
attempt it. The girls and I excused ourselves on 
account of our short sight; but Lady Downshire hit 
a fiddler in the dining-room, Miss Johnstone a door 
and Bloomfield the ceiling. ... I soon had enough 
of this, and retired to the fire with Mac. ... At last 
a waltz was played by the band, and the Prince offered 
to waltz with Miss Johnstone, but very quietly, and 
once round the table made him giddy, so of course it 
was proper for his partner to be giddy too ; but he 
cruelly only thought of supporting himself, so she 
reclined on the Baron." 

"Sunday, Nov. 3, 1805. 

"And so I amuse you by my histories. Well! I 
am glad of it, and it encourages me to go on ; and yet 
I can tell you I could tire of such horrors as I have 
had the last 3 evenings. I nevertheless estimate them 
as you do, and am quite disposed to persevere. The 
second evening was the worst. We were in the dining- 
room (a comfortless place except for eating and drink- 
ing in), and sat in a circle round the fire, which (to 
indulge you with 'detail') was thus arranged. Mrs. 
F[itzherbert] in the chimney corner (but not knitting), 
next to her Lady Downshire — then Mrs. Creevey— 
then Geoff — then Dr. [erasedj— then Savory — then 
Warner — then Day, vis-a-vis his mistress, and most 
of the time snoring like a pig and waking for nothing 

* The Right Hon. John Macmahon, Private Secretary and Keeper 
of the Privy Purse to the Prince of Wales. Died in 18 17. 



i8o5.] EVENINGS AT THE PAVILION. iS^ 

better than a glass of water, which he call'd for, 
hoping, I think, to be offered something better. . . . 
Last night was better; it was the same party only 
instead of Savory, a Col. or Major Watley [?] of the 
Gloster Militia, and the addition of Mrs. Morant, an 
old card-playing woman. . . . Mrs. Fitz shone last 
night very much in a sketch she gave me of the history 
of a very rich Russian woman of quality who is coming 
to Lord Berkeley's house. She has been long in 
England, and is I suppose generally known in London, 
though new to me. She was a married woman with 
children, and of great consequence at the court of 
Petersburgh when Lord Whitworth was there some 
years ago. He was poor and handsome — she rich 
and in love with him, and tired of a very magnificent 
husband to whom she had been married at 14 years 
old. In short, she kept my Lord, and spent immense 
sums in doing so and gratifying his great extravagance. 
In the midst of all this he return'd to England, but 
they corresponded, and she left her husband and her 
country to come to him, expecting to marry him — got 
as far as Berlin, and there heard he was married to 
the Duchess of Dorset. 

" She was raving mad for some time, and Mrs. F. 
describes her as being often nearly so now, but at 
other times most interesting, and most miserable. 
Her husband and children come to England to visit 
her, and Mrs. F. says she is an eternal subject of 
remorse to Lord Whitworth, whom she [Mrs. F.] 
spoke of in warm terms as * a monster,' and said she 
could tell me far more to make me think so. The story 
sometimes hit upon points that made her blush and 
check herself, which was to me not the least interest- 
ing part of it. . . . She laughed more last night than 
ever at the Johnstones — said he was a most vulgar 
man, but seem'd to give him credit for his good nature 
to his sister and his generosity. The Baron is pre- 
paring a phantasmagoria at the Pavillion, and she 
[Mrs. F.] laughs at what he may do with Miss John- 
stone in a dark room." 

"5th Nov., 1805, 

". . . My head is very^ bad, I suppose with the heat 
of the Pavillion last night. We were there before 



'68 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

Mrs, Fitzherbert came, and it almost made her faint, 
but she put on no airs to be interesting and soon 
recovered, and I had a great deal of comfortable prose 
with her. It was rather formidable when we arrived : 
nobody but Mrs. Morant and the Prince and Dr. 
Fraser, and for at least- half-an-hour in this little circle 
the conversation was all between the Prince and me 
— first about Sheridan, and about not seeing you, and 
his determination to make you come (if not bring you) 
back next week, when he is to have Lord St. Vincent, 
Markham, Sheridan, Tierney, &c. . . . Lady Down- 
shire soon came, but did not help conversation — 
then came Geoff and Mrs. Fitz, and soon afterwards 
the men from the dining-room, consisting of only Day 
and Warner, Savory, Bloomfield and the Baron. The 
Prince told Mrs. F. he would not have any more, lest 
they should disturb her. . . . Before she came, he was 
talking of the fineness of the day, and said : — ' But I 
was not out. I went to Mrs. Fitzherbert's at one 
o'clock, and stay'd talking with her till past 6, which 
was certainly very unfashionable' Now was he not 
at that moment thinking of her as his lawful wife ? for 
in no other sense could he call it unfashionable !' 

"Wednesday, Nov. 6, 1805. 

"I am much flatter'd, dearest Creevey, that you 
complain when my letters are short. ... I went to 
the Pavillion last night quite well, and moreover am 
well to-day and fit for Johnstone's ball, which at last 
is to be. They were at the Pavillion and she [Miss 
Johnstone] persecuted both the Prince and Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert like a most impudent fool. The former was 
all complyance and good nature — the latter very civil, 
but most steady in refusing to go. She said she could 
not go out, and Miss J. grinned and answer'd — 'Oh! 
. but you are out here ' — then urged that it had been put 
off on purpose for Mrs. F.,who said she was sorry for 
it, but hoped it wd. be put off no longer. All this 
Mrs. F. told me herself, with further remarks, just 
before I came away, which I did with Lady Down- 
shire, and left the Johnstones with their affairs in an 
unsettled state, and with faces of great anxiety and 
misery. But the attack was renew'd, and the Prince 



i8os.] DEATH OF NELSON. 69 

said : — ' I shall have great pleasure in looking in upon 
you, but indeed I cannot let this good woman (Mrs. F.) 
come : she is quite unfit for it.' And so we shall see 
the fun of his looking in or staying all the evening, 
for poor Johnstone has been running about the Steyne 
with a paper in his hand all the morning and invited 
us all. . . . When I got to the Pavillion last night . . . 
the Prince sat down by me directly, and I told him 
my headache had made me late, and he was very 
affectionate. . . . Harry Grey has just come in with 
news of a great victory at sea and poor Nelson being 
kill'd. It has come by express to the Prince, and it 
is said 20 sail are taken or destroyed. What will this 
do ? not, I hope, save Pitt ; but both parties may now 
be humble and make peace. ... 

" I have had new visitors here this morning — 
Madle. Voeykoff, the niece of the old Russian, and 
Mde. Pieton, a young friend, daughter of the famous 
Mrs. Nesbitt and Prince Ferdinand of Wirtemburgh, 
as is supposed. I talked with her last night, because 
Mrs. F. praised her "as a most amiable creature, and I 
liked her very much. In short, as usual, the Pavillion 
amused me, and I wd. rather have been there again 
to-night than at Johnstone's nasty ball and fine 
supper." 



Mrs. Fitzherbert to Mrs. Creevey. 

"Nov. 6, 1805. 
" Dr. Madam, 

'^The Prince has this moment reed, an account 
from the Admiralty of the death of poor Lord Nelson, 
which has affected him most extremely. I think you 
may wish to know the news, which, upon any other 
occasion might be called a glorious victory — twenty 
out of three and thirty of the eneniy's fleet being 
entirely destroyed — no English ship being taken or 
sunk — Capts. Duff and Cook both kill'd, and the 
French Adl. Villeneuve taken prisoner. Poor Lord 
Nelson reed, his death by a shot of a musket from 
the enemy's ship upon his shoulder, and expir'd two 
hours after, but not till the ship struck and afterwards 
sunk, which he had the consolation of hearing, as well 



70 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

as his compleat victory, before he died. Excuse this 
hurried scrawl : I am so nervous I scarce can hold my 
pen. God bless you. 

"Yours, 

"M. FiTZHERBERT." 



Mrs. Creevey to Mr. Creevey. 

" Friday night, 12 o'clock. 

"Dearest Creevey, 

"... I think you will like to hear I have spent 
a very comfortable evening with my mistress.* We 
had a long discourse about Lady Wellesley. The 
folly of men marrying such women led us to Mrs. 
Fox, and I saw she would have liked to go further 
than I dared, or than our neighbours would permit. 
. . . They were all full of Prussians and Swedes and 
Danes and Russians coming soon with irresistible 
destruction on Buonaparte. I wonder if there is a 
chance of it. I don't believe it. . , ." 



"Nov. 7, 1805. 

". . . [The Prince's] sorrow [for Nelson's death] 
rriight help to prevent his coming to dinner at the 
Pavillion or to Johnstone's ball. He did neither, but 
stayed with Mrs. Fitz ; and you may imagine the dis- 
appointment of the Johnstones. The girl grin'd it off 
with the captain, but Johnstone had a face of perfect 
horror all night, and I think he was very near insane. 
I once lamented Lord Nelson to him, and he said : — 
* Oh shocking : and to come at such ai; unlucky 
time!' ..." 

" 8th Nov. 

". . . The first of my visits this morning was to 
' my Mistress.' ... I found her alone, and she was 
excellent — gave me an account of the Prince's grief 
about Lord N., and then entered into the domestic 
failings of the latter in a way infinitely creditable to 
her, and skilful too. She was all for Lady Nelson and 
against Lady Hamilton, who, she said (hero as he 
was) overpower'd him and took possession of him 

* Mrs. Fitzherbert. 



1805.] ■ MRS. FITZHERBERT. 7% 

quite by force. But she ended in a natural, good way, 
by saying :— * Poor creature ! I am sorry for her now, 
for I suppose she is in grief.' " 

" Past 4 o'clock, Monday. 

". . . Mrs. Fitzherbert came before 12 and has 
literally only this moment left me. We have been 
all the time alone, and she has been confidential to a 
degree that almost frightens me, and that I can hardly 
think sufficiently accounted for by her professing in 
the strongest terms to have liked me more and more 
every time she has seen me, tho' at first she told Mr. 
Tierney no person had ever struck her so much at 
first sight. . . . So much in excuse for her telling me 
the history of her life, and dwelling more particularly 
on the explanation of all her feelings and conduct 
towards the Prince. If she is as true as I think she 
is wise, she is an extraordinary person,' and most 
worthy to be beloved. It was quite Impossible to 
keep clear of Devonshire House; and there her 
opinions are all precisely mine and yours, and, what 
is better, she says they are now the Prince's; that he 
knows everything— above all, how money is made by 
promises, unauthorised by him, in the event of his 
haying power; that he knows how his character is 
involved in various transactions of that house, and 
that he only goes into it, from motives of compassion 
and old friendship, when he is persecuted to do so. 
In short, he tells Mrs. F. all he sees and hears, shews 
her all the Duchess's letters and notes, and she says 
she knows the Dss. hates her. . . . We talked of her 
life being written ; she said she supposed it would 
some time or other, but with thousands of lies ; but 
she would be dead and it would not signify. I urged 
her to write it herself, but she said it would break hei* 
heart." 

"Nov. 27, 1805. 

"... I was very sorry indeed to go to the Pavil- 
lion, and 'my Master' made me no amends for my 
exertion — no shaking hands — only a common bow in 
passing — and not a word all night, except just before 
I came away some artificial stuff about the Baron, and 
then a little parting shake of the hand with this 



72 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. III. 

interesting observation — ' So Creevey is gone,' and the 
interesting answer of — ' Yes, Sir.' In short I suspect 
he was a little affronted by our going away the night 
before : but I don't mind it — he will soon come about 
again ; or if he does not, I will make him ashamed by 
begging his pardon." 

" Nov. 29th. 

"... Well, I am quite in favor again. When I 
entered Gerobtzoff"'s room last night Prinny * was on 
a sofa directly opposite the door, and in return for a 
curtsey, perhaps rather more grave, more low and 
humble than usual (meaning — 'I beg your pardon 
dear foolish, beautiful Prinny for making you take 
the pet '), he put out his hand. . . . We soon went to 
see the ball at the Pavillion, and Mrs. Fitz selected 
me to go in the first party in a way that set up the 
backs of various persons and puzzled even Geoff. ... 
We were soon tired of the amusement and sick of the 
heat and stink. Neither the Prince nor any one stay'd 
long, and the rest of the evening was horribly dull ; 
but luckily for me, when the Prince returned I was 
sitting on a little sofa that wd. only hold two, and the 
other seat was vacant; so he came to it, and never 
left me or spoke to another person till within 10 
minutes of my coming away at ^ past 12. . . . We had 
the old stories of Mrs. Sheridan, only with some new 
additions . . . we had Charles Grey too, and he talked 
of his [Grey's] dislike to him, because in the Regency 
he wd. not hear of his being Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer. He talked of his bad temper and his early 
presumption in overrating his own talents. . . . He 
told me that when he was king he wd. not give up his 
private society, and on my saying a little flattering 
sentence about the good I expected from him, he 
actually said — * he hoped I should never have cause 
to think differently of him.' This was going his 
length, so I stopt." 

"Dec. 2, 1805. . 

". . . We have been at the Pavillion both Friday 
and yesterday, and Mrs. F. has desired us to come 
every night without invitation. . . . Both these parties 

* The Prince of Wales. 



i8o5.] THE PRINCE OF WALES. 73 

have been private and the Prince ecjually good and 
attentive to me at both. . . . Last night he took me 
under his arm through the dark, wet garden into the 
other house, to shew me a picture of himself. Poor 
little Lady Downshire push'd herself (tho' humbly) 
into our party, but he sent her before with Bloomfield 
and the lanthorn, and he and I might have gone astray 
in any way we had liked ; but I can assure you (faith- 
less as you are about coming back to me) nothing 
worse happened than his promise of giving me the 
best print that ever was done of him, and mine that it 
shall hang in the best place amongst my friends." 

"Dec. 5, 1805. 

". . . It was a large party at the Pavillion last 
night, and the Prince was not well . . . and went off 
to bed. ... Lord Hutchinson was my chief flirt for 
the evening, but before Prinny went off he took a 
seat by me to tell me all this bad news had made him 
bilious and that he was further overset yesterday by 
seeing the ship with Lord Nelson's body on board. . . . 
None of them knew Pitt was gone to Bath till I told 
them. I ask'd both Lord H[utchinson] and his Master 
if they wd. like him to die now, or live a little longer 
to be turn'd out. They both decidedly prefer instant 
death. ... I think Sheridan may probably return with 
you on Friday if you ask him. On second thoughts — 
I would not have you ask him, for he will make you 
wait and sleep at the Cock at Sutton." 



( 74 ) 



CHAPTER IV. 

1 806-1 808. 

Pitt never rallied from the shock of Ulm and 
Austerlitz. Parliament was to meet on 21st January, 
1806, and he travelled up from Bath by easy stages to 
his villa at Putney, where he arrived on the nth, and 
invitations were issued for the customary official 
dinner of the First Lord of the Treasury on the 20th. 
But that dinner never took place. Lord Henry Petty 
had given notice of an amendment to the Address 
censuring Pitt's administration ; but out of respect to 
a disabled foe, he did not move it, and the Address 
was agreed to without debate. 

Hon. Charles Grey, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Howick, Jan. 13, 1806. 

" I received your letter last night, and had from 
other quarters the same reports of Pitt's illness and 
resignation, I think you will probably find these 
among the false reports of the day. I cannot believe 
in his resigning again while he has breath ; and as 
to his health, I shall not be surprised to see him 
making a speech of two hours on the first day of the 
Session." 

Pitt expired on 23rd January, and the old King 
had at last to have recourse to the Whigs. Lord 



i8o6-8.] "ALL THE TALENTS." 75 

Grenville formed a coalition Cabinet, nicknamed 
"All the Talents," in which Fox held the seals of the 
Foreign Office, Grey was First Lord of the Admiralty, 
Addington, now Lord Sidmouth, took the Privy 
Seal, and Erskine as Whig Lord Chancellor balanced 
Ellenborough as Tory Lord Chief Justice with a seat 
in the Cabinet. Mr. Creevey's past activity and 
promise of more were not overlooked, and he was 
appointed Secretary to the Board of Controul — a post 
which, as his friend Mr. (afterwards Lord) Grey 
wrote to him, was " better in point of emolument and 
of more real work" than a seat at the Board of 
Admiralty which was first intended for him, "and 
not obliging you to vacate your seat " in Parliament. 
Associated with this office were the duties of party 
whip, which Creevey began to discharge forthwith. 
Some of the Ministers seeking re-election on taking 
office had to fight fiercely for their seats ; the Whig 
Lord Henry Petty, having accepted office as Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, was opposed at Cambridge 
by Lord Althorp and Lord Palmerston — both of them 
future leaders of the Liberal party in the House of 
Commons. But before that should happen, Palmer- 
ston had twenty years to serve as a Tory Minister. 
It was of this contest between Petty and Palmerston 
that Byron wrote in Hours of Idleness : — 

" One on his power and place depends, 
The other on the Lord knows what ; 
Each to some eloquence pretends, 

Though neither will convince by that." 



76 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

Lord Henry Petty to Mr. Creevey. 

"Cambridge, January, 1806. 
" We go on well, and I hope to beat Palmerston 
even if Althorp stands, which is possible, for he tells 
me he is urged to continue, and tries to think he has 
some chance of success, which is out of the question. 
The Johnians have discovered that I am a lurking 
dissenter. . . . Some five Pittites proposed setting up 
Ld. Hadley to give the College an opportunity of 
showing its respect for the memory of Mr. P. by 
voting against Ld. Althorp and me." 

" Cambridge, 28th Jany., 1806. 

"Dear Creevey, 

" We go on as well as you will see by the 
list. I have a very handsome letter from Ld. Percy,, 
who tells me he has written to the Master, Tutors 
and all his friends at St. John's in my favor, but I 
fear they are all engaged to Palmerston. The latter, 
I am told, has 130 secure. Althorp does not give 
way, but I threaten with a formal proposal to com- 
pare strength, which discomposes him a good deal. 

" Ever yrs., 

" Hy. Petty.'^ 

The Prince of Wales, as a keen party man, and 
considering himself leader of the Whigs, was not idle 
at such a crisis. He sent out his commands right 
and left; woe betide him who failed to vote as 
directed. Such, at least, was evidently the appre- 
hension of one of his chaplains, who had rashly 
pledged himself without consulting his royal master's 
wishes. 

Rev. W. Price to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 

" 5S> Upper John St., Fitzroy Square, Feb. ist, 1806. 

" Sir, 

" Permit me to observe to Your Royal High- 
ness, that few events in the course of my Life have 
impress'd me with more uneasiness than the Letter 



i8o6-8.] CREEVEY IN OFFICE. JJ 

which I have receiv'd from Col. McMahon in which is 
intimated Your Royal Highness's commands that I 
give my Interest to Lord Henry Petty as a Candidate 
for the University of Cambridge. 

"I beg with all humility to assure Your Royal 
Highness, my Inclination no less than my Duty would 
dictate an obedience to Your Royal Highness upon 
this and every occasion, but I am to lament when I 
had the Honor to attend his Majesty at St. James's 
with the Address from the University of Cambridge, 
Lord Spencer solicited my Vote in behalf of his Son 
Lord Althorp, when I, not conceiving Your Royal 
Highness had any commands on this occasion, 
•promis'd to Lord Spencer that Vote which he now 
claims, informing me Your Royal Highness assur'd 
him yesterday you wou'd not have interfer'd in 
opposition to Ld. Althorp, had you known his 
intention to offer himself. 1 am therefore humbly to 
solicit Your Ro}^al Highness's indulgence, and that I 
may not suffer in your estimation on this occasion, 
and beg to profess how greatly I feel in Duty and 
Obedience. 

"Your Royal Highness's most devoted and 
most humble Servant and Chaplain, 

"William Price." 



Lord Robert Spencer* to Mr. Creevey. 

" Saturday night. 

" Dear Creevey, 

" Pray don't forget that the responsibility 
rests with you as to C. Fox's coming to town for 
Monday or not. 

"Yrs. ever, 

"R. Spencer." 

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey. 

" /<zw^ at the Nore, 6tli Feb., 1806. 

". . . I think as you are now a staunch supporter 
of the Government, there can be no great harm in my 
corresponding with you. I own to you that, since 

* Youngest son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough. 



78 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV, 

Pitt's death, I have been clearly of opinion that 
Charles Fox was the man whom I wished to see at 
the helm, and, altho' I have long ceased to be very 
sangwine in my expectation with regard to the con- 
duct of public men, yet I have hopes that we shall 
see a manly, decided line of conduct adopted by the 
present Muphties. . . . We are just on the point of 
weighing anchor, and are only waiting for daylight to 
see our way to St. Helens, where I am ordered. We 
have been manned a few days — so-so — about 90 of the 
Victory s form the groundwork. They are not what 
you might expect from the companions of Nelson, but 
they will do with some whipping and spurring. We 
shall be tolerable in about six months ; in the mean- 
time we must do our best. . . ." 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

"July, 1 806. 

"... I dined at the London Tavern last night 
and there were eight Ministers of State and all the 
India directors, and secretaries and under-secre- 
taries and fellow-servants of all descriptions without 
end, in all about 200, but the devil a bit of Turtle ! 
upon which I thought little Kensington * would have 
cried. Sheridan and I were for crying 'Off! off! 
off! ' and damning the whole piece on account of the 
absence of the principal performer. I sat opposite to 
Morpeth,t and I made him blush and laugh and almost 
cry all at once. I swore it was the beggarly budget 
that frightened the directors out of giving their 
masters turtle. My comrogues laughed, and the 
directors did not half like the joke. . . . You see 
my friend Mr. Howorth has been adding to the 
amusements of Brighton races by fighting a duel 
with Lord Barrymore. His lordship was his adver- 
sary at whist, and chose to tell him that something 
he said about the cards was 'false;' upon which 
Howorth gave him such a blow as makes the lord 
walk about at this moment with a black eye. Of 

* The 2nd Lord Kensington. 

t Lord Morpeth [1773-1848], afterwards 6th Earl of Carlisle, re- 
presented India in the new administration. 



i8o6-8.] FOX'S LAST ILLNESS. 79 

course a duel could not be prevented. When they 
got to the ground, Howorth very coolly pulled off his 
coat and said : ' My lord, having been a surgeon I 
know that the most dangerous thing in a wound is 
having a piece of cloth shot into it, so I advise you to 
follow my example.' The peer, I believe, despised 
such low professional care, and no harm happened to 
either of them." 

Six months had not gone by since Pitt breathed 
his last, when the health of his great rival, Fox, broke 
down. He appeared for the last time in the House of 
Commons on loth June, already exceedingly ill, but 
determined to be at his post in order to move cer- 
tain resolutions preparatory to the bill for abolishing 
the slave trade. This he accomplished, and the bill 
giving effect to these resolutions became law in the 
following year; but by that time Charles Fox was 
no more. He lingered till 13th September, 1806, and 
every bulletin during his last illness was anxiously 
watched for and canvassed by men and women of 
both parties in the State. Assuredly no public man 
was ever better beloved than Fox on account of his 
private qualities. Notwithstanding that his great 
natural abilities suffered damage, and his energies 
were diverted and impaired by his excessive convivi- 
ality and love of gambling, even his political enemies 
could not help loving the man. Pitt's * haughtiness 
repelled; Fox's simplicity and sweetness of address 
attracted all hearts. Pitt's talents and penetrating 
foresight commanded the confidence and gratitude of 
his followers ; but it was not his lot to secure the 
passionate affection, approaching to idolatry, which 
was freely given to Fox. 



8o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

Mrs. Creevey to Mr. Creevey. 

"July lo, 1806. 

". . . Hester * and Sheridan dined with us yester- 
day, as well as Harry Scott, and we were extremely 
sociable and agreeable all the evening, until Lord and 
Lady Howick,t General Grey and Charlotte Hughes 
added to our party. Poor Charlotte % was rather ' in 
the basket,' for you know Ogles and Greys do not 
take much pains to make a stranger comfortable ; but 
old Sherry with his usual good taste was very 
attentive to her. . . . Lord Howick was in better 
spirits and very amiable, no doubt owing to his im- 
proved hopes about Mr. Fox. He had been that 
morning for the first time convinced that he was 
materially better, both from the opinion of Vaughan 
and from having seen him — that his looks were wonder- 
fully improved. He is sure his body and legs are 
lessened and Mr. Fox said himself, 'whatever my 
disease has been, I am convinced it is much abated, 
and I think I shall do again.^ . , . Lord and Lady 
Howick and the General went away before 12, and 
then Sherry, who had been very good at dinner and 
most agreeable all the evening, seem'd to have a 
little hankering after a broiled bone ... so in due 
time he had it." 

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie. 

" 1 2th July. 

". . . Fox is a great deal better to-day certainly 
than he has ever been yet, and is walking about in his 
garden; so I hope to G — we shall all do. . . . We 
had a devil of a business last night altogether. We 
got off from the House to Sherry's a little before 8 — 
about 14 of us — without him, so I made him give me 

* The 2nd Mrs. Sheridan, nee Ogle. 

t Sir Charles Grey of Howick having been created Earl Grey in 
this year, his eldest son assumed the courtesy title of Lord Howick. 

% Mrs. Hughes of 'Kinmel, whose husband was created Lord 
Dinorben in 1831. 



i8o6-8.] . SHERIDAN JIBS. 8l 

a written order 'to his two cooks to serve up the turtle 
in his absence, which they did, and which we presently 
devoured. In the midst of the second course, a black, 
sooty kitchenmaid rushed into the room screaming 
'Fire ! ' At the house door were various other persons 
hallooing to the same purpose, and it turned out to be 
the curtains in Mrs. Sheridan's dressing-room in a 
blaze, which Harry Scott had presence of mind to 
pull down by force, instead of joining in the general 
clamour for buckets, which was repeated from all the 
box-keepers, scene-shifters, thief-takers, and sheriff's 
officers who were performing the character of servants 
out of livery. So the fire was extinguished, with some 
injury to Harry's thumb. 

" Half an hour afterwards we were summoned to a 
division which did not take place till three, and another 
at four. Our situation in the House was as precarious 
as at Sheridan's. His behaviour was infamous.* . . . 
He said he had stayed away all the session from dis- 
approving all our military measures, and finally made 
a motion which, if the Addingtonians had supported, 
would have left us in a minority. . . . Grey made one 
of his best speeches, full of honor, courage and good 
faith — it made a great impression, and Sherry was 
left to the contempt from all sides he so justly de- 
served. . . . Prinney t sent McMahon to me yesterday 
desiring to know whether I would induce Tufnell to 
withdraw his pretensions to Colchester. He was 
asked to make this request to me by Sir Wm. Smith, 

that of a fellow you may remember at Brighton, 

and who himself has started. But I returned Prinney 
such a bill of fare of Tuffy's merits and pretensions, 
that I have no doubt old Smith in his turn will be 
asked to give way." 

* Sheridan held office in " All the Talents " as Treasurer of the 
Navy ; but he declared on this occasion that " he was sure the Cabinet 
would never look to him for the subserviency of sacrificing his in- 
dependence of opinion to any consideration of office ; at least, if ever 
they should so expect, they would be disappointed " [^Hansard, July 1 1 , 
1806]. 

t The Prince of Wales. 



82 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

Mrs. Creevey to Miss Ord, 

«i5thjuly.' 
". . . I, ani returned from my morning's travels, 
but they were sadly shortened by going first to the 
Admiralty and hearing from Lady Howick that Hester 
fMrs. Sheridan] was not well. I proceeded to 
Somerset House ; Mr. Secretary * got into the coach 
in Parliament Street, and when we got to Somerset 
House, we found Hester so well, and with such a nicq 
cold chicken and tongue before her, that we made him 
get out of the coach and eat with us. Then I had only 
time to call at Mr. Fox's, who continues better. . . , 
He is advised, I hear, to go to the sea, and McMahdri 
says it will be Brighton, for Prinney has offered him 
one of his houses, and presses him much to take it, 
McMahon says he will, but I cannot sa}^ I think the 
dinners at the Pavilion will be good for him. ... The 
offer, I think, looks as if Prin thought he could niake 
up the quarrel with Mrs. Fitzherbert,t which I wish 
he may, but you know \vq. does sometimes fancy he can 
do more than in the end he performs." 

" 30th July. 

". . . In bur return from walking in the Park last 
night at 10 o'clock we saw the Prince's chariot at Mr. 
Fox's door, and I find from Mrs. Bouverie that he 
stayed a long time, and Mr. Fox was not fatigued by 
it, but had a good night. . . . She has not seen him 
for some days, but she says that is accident, owing to 
Lady Holland being there whom he will not see ; but 
she plants herself in one of the rooms below stairs, 
under pretence of waiting for Lord Holland, and so 
prevents his admitting any other woman." 

" 25th August. 
". . . Mr. Creevey dined yesterday at Lord Cowper's. 
It was a grand dinner after the christening of his son, 
to whom the Prince stood godfather. The ceremony 

* Mr. Creevey, Secretary to the Board of Controul. 
t In 1806 the Prince fell in love with Lady Hertford, and Mrs. 
Fitzherbert's excellent and quasi-legitimate influence waned. 



i8o6-8]. HIGH LIVING. 83' 

was going on in one drawing-room when Mr. Creevey 
arrived. After it was over, the Prince, on coming 
into the room where the rest of the company were 
assembled, said: 'Ho, Creevey! you there,' and 
sprang across the room and shook hands with him. 
When he sat opposite to him at dinner he hardly 
spoke to anyone else, beginning directly with — ' Well, 
tell me now, Creevey, about Mrs. Creevey and the 
girls, and when they come to Brighton ; ' and on hear- 
ing * probably in October,' he said — ' Oh delightful ! 
we shall be so comfortable,' and then went over the 
old stories . . . till, as Mr. C. says, the company did 
not know very well what to make of it. They all 
adjourned to Melbourne House to supper. At 2 o'clock 
in the morning, that terrible Sheridan seduced Mr. 
Creevey into Brookes, where they stayed till 4, when 
Sherry affectionately came home with him, and upstairs 
to see me. They were both so very merry, and so 
much pleased with each other's jokes, that, though 
they could not repeat them to me very distinctly, 
I was too much amused to scold them as they 
deserved." 

The constant bulletins about Fox, which it is 
not necessary to repeat, continued favourable till 
9th September, when the dropsy began to gain ground 
upon him. But, considering how the letters even of 
this amiable and accomplished lady are pervaded with 
the fumes of wine and the aroma of broiled bones, the 
marvel is, not that so many men of her acquaintance 
suffered in their health, but why more of them did not 
bring their lives prematurely to a close by perpetual 
stuffing and swilling. Wine in excess was not only 
the chief cause of a disordered system, but it was 
made to serve as the invariable remedy, supple- 
mented by the free use of the lancet and by drastic 
purges. 



84 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

Mrs. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" 12 Sept., 1806. 

"... I am going to Somerset House to enquire 
after poor Sheridan, who went from this house very 
ill at 12 o'clock last night. . . . He complained of sore 
throat and shivering, and his pulse was the most 
frightful one I ever felt ; it was so tumultuous and so 
strong that when one touched it, it seemed not only 
to shake his arm, but his whole frame. ... I lighted 
a fire and a great many candles, and Mr. Creevey, who 
was luckily just come home from Petty's, began to tell 
him stories. . . . Then we sent for some wine, of 
which he was so frightened it required persuasion to 
make him drink six small glasses, of which the efi"ect 
was immediate in making him not only happier, but 
composing his pulse. ... In the midst of his dismals 
he said most clever, funny things, and at last got to 
describing Mr. Hare, and others of his old associates, 
with the hand of a real master, and made one lament 
that such extraordinary talents should have such 
numerous allo3'^s. He received a note from Lady 
Elizabeth Forster, with a good account of Mr. Fox. 
It ended with — 'try to drink less and speak the truth.' 
He was very funny about it and said: * By G-d! I 
speak more truth than she does, however.' Then he 
told us how she had cried to him the night before, 
' because she felt it her severe duty to be Duchess of 
Devonshire ! ' * 

With Fox was extinguished the brightest of "All 
the Talents." The administration continued during 
the succeeding winter, but when the King, in March, 
1807, demanded an assurance from his Ministers that 
they would bring in no measure of Roman Catholic 
Relief, Grenville, who, with Pitt, had resigned office 
in 1 801 because of the King's determination on this 

* The Duchess of Devonshire had died in March of this year. 
Lady Elizabeth married the Duke, but not till three years later, in 
1809. 



l8o6-8.] THE PORTLAND ADMINISTRATION. 85 

subject, declined to continue in office on such terms, 
and the Cabinet resigned. Some of his colleagues 
disapproved highly of this course, Sheridan observing 
that "he had known many men knock their heads 
against a w^^all, but he had never before heard of a man 
collecting bricks and building a wall for the express 
purpose of knocking out his own brains against it." 
Probably Mr. Creevey shared this view, but there is 
an almost total blank in his correspondence during 
the year which brought his brief tenure of office to 
a close. The coalition of parties was at an end, and 
the Duke of Portland became nominal head of a Tory 
Cabinet. 

Lord Henry Petty to Mr. Creevey. 

" Teignmouth, Nov. 2nd, 1807. 

". . . Altho' I understand that Ld. Wellesley claims 
all the glory of the Copenhagen expedition, I think 
Ld. Chatham's negative will prevail over his positive 
qualities, and that he will be the minister of next year. 
Archd. Hamilton writes to me that Melville is more 
than ever Minister de facto in Scotland, and that a 
year's fasting has so sharpened the appetites of his 
followers, that not a chaise is to be got on any of the 
roads which lead to Dunira, so numerous are the 
solicitors and expectants that attend his court. 

"Dartmouth harbour — a beautiful basin — exhibits 
a curious spectacle at present. The flags of Portugal 
and Denmark flying on board at least twelve or four- 
teen detained ships of both nations, the crews of which 
are maintained by Govt. ... I am now an inhabitant 
of New Burlington Street, but a letter directed 
London will be sure to find me." 

The year 1808 was perhaps the most momentous 
of the century to the destiny of Great Britain. Not 
many months before his death Pitt had laid his finger 
on the map of Spain as the only part of the Continent 



86 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

where a successful stand might be made against 
Napoleon. But Spain was allied with France as the 
foe of England, and since Pitt's death the idea had 
been entertained by Portland's Cabinet of assisting 
the South American colonies of Spain in a revolt 
against the mother country. A certain young general, 
Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had won considerable 
renown in India, and, on returning to this country, 
had [entered Parliament for the express purpose of 
defending his brother. Marquess Wellesley, against 
the attacks upon his administration as Viceroy, 
happened to be Secretary for Ireland at this time. 
He had retained that responsible office while com- 
manding a division under Lord Cathcart in the suc- 
cessful but inglorious Copenhagen campaign of 1807. 
Sir Arthur, then, in the spring of 1808, was directed to 
confer with General Miranda, emissary of the revolu- 
tionary party in Spanish South America, and to pre- 
pare plans for an expedition to support the rebellion 
there. Such plans Wellesley prepared,:making out in 
his own handwriting lists of all the stores required, 
down to the very number of flints required for small 
arms. Nevertheless, he disapproved of the policy 
of this projected expedition. "I have always had a 
horror," he afterwards said to Lord Mahon, "of re- 
volutionising any country for a political object. I 
always said — if they rise of themselves, well and 
good, but do not stir them up ; it is a fearful respon- 
sibility." Moreover, in the concluding paragraph 
of his memorandum. Sir Arthur could not refrain 
from alluding pointedly to "the manner in which 
Napoleon's armies are now spread in all parts of 
Europe," and asking pointedly whether it was impos- 
sible to operate against him in the Old World, rather 



i8o6-8.] ALLIANCE WITH SPAIN. 8/ 

than undertake speculative projects in the New. If 
possible, said he, it is " an opportunity which ought 
not to be passed by." * 

Fortunately affairs took a sudden turn which, by 
ranging Spain alongside of her ancient enemy Great 
Britain in the struggle with Napoleon, brought 
Ministers to the views of the dead Pitt and the 
future Duke of Wellington. The rulers of Spain 
had proved both corrupt and incompetent ; her 
armies, commanded by ignorant and vain aristo- 
crats, were utterly unfit to take the field against 
Napoleon's marshals; yet the ancient spirit still 
burned in the hearts of her people. In the month of 
May news came to England that the Spaniards had 
risen in revolt against the French. Nine thousand 
troops lay at Cork, ready to embark for South 
America, there to aid in overturning the government 
of the King of Spain in his colonies. At the beginning 
of June, Sir Arthur Wellesley, being still Secretary 
for Ireland, was sent to take command of these, to 
sail with them to Spain, there to aid in restoring the 
King of Spain's authority in his home dominions. A 
strange piece of scene-shifting, opening, as it did, the 
long and trernendous drama of the Peninsular war. • 
Creevey's correspondence continues extremely 
fragmentary during this exciting period. Such letters 
las remain betray the growing bitterness of party 
spirit and the intense impatience of the extreme 
members of the Opposition, of whom Creevey was 
one, with Lord Grenville, who, though not a Whig, 
could no longer be reckoned as a Tory, and with the 
more responsible and moderate Whigs, who, like Lord 
iGrey, were not prepared to push the interests of 



88 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

party before those of the country. Creevey's leader 
at this time was Samuel Whitbread, a man of un- 
blemished character, absolute honesty, and consider- 
able debating power, but one who did not shrink 
from the responsibility of hampering and thwarting 
Ministers, even when the safety of the Empire seemed 
at stake. He opposed to the utmost the war policy 
of the Government, and was specially hostile to the 
Wellesleys — both the Marquess and Sir Arthur. 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Southill, Ap. 1 8, 1808. 
". . .Whatever some squeamish voters in the Ho. 
of Commons may think and wish, the publick will not 
be satisfied without the active pursuit of Melville, and 
I shall not be inclined to make any compromise with 
shabbiness. It's a pleasant circumstance, amongst 
others, that the Admiraltj'^ cannot be disposed of. . . ." 

"Margate, June 29, 1808. 

". . . The insurrection [in Spain against the 
French] has taken a much greater degree of method 
and consistency than I had expected, and the accession 
of two such persons as Filanqueri and Sovilliano is of 
the utmost importance. God send them successful ! 
and we ought and must give them every possible 
assistance ; but I dread the account of the first conflict 
between the French army and this patriotic band. It 
is the business of the Patriots to avoid it, and that of 
Bonaparte to seek it as soon as possible. . . . You 
have asked me two or three times for my speculations 
upon another session ? Will you be so good as to 
give me yours ? and as I wish to be master of the 
E[ast] I[ndia] subject by the autumn, be so good as tq 
point out to me a course of reading." 

Wellesley's expedition sailed from Cork on 15th 
June ; before the end of September the only French 
troops left in Portugal were the garrisons of Elvas 



l8o6-8.] THE CONVENTION OF CINTRA. 89 

and Almeida; General Junot, with a beaten army of 
26,000 men, had been conveyed in British ships to 
Rochelle ; the Russian Admiral Siniavin had sur- 
rendered his whole fleet in the Tagus to Sir Charles 
Cotton. Such were the conditions of the famous 
Convention of Cintra, forced upon the French by the 
victorious little army under Sir Arthur Wellesley. 
Yet was the nation almost unanimous in demanding 
his degradation, if not his death, with that of the two 
generals who successively took command over his 
head. They were even blamed in the King's Speech 
from the Throne for "acceding to the terms of the 
Convention." The sagacious Whitbread and his friends 
found solace in the discomfiture of the Wellesleys. 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Bounds, near Tunbridge, Sept. 25th, 1808. 

". . . I conclude the same sentiment prevails all 
over the country respecting the Portuguese con- 
vention. Cobbet's dissertation upon it is excellent, 
tho' it by no means explains, nor can anything explain, 
the mystery. I grieve for the opportunity that has 
been losi of acquiring national glory, but am not 
sorry to see the Wellesley pride a little lowered. . . ." 

Wm. CobbeW' to Lord Folkestone, M. P. \ 

"9 Oct., 1808, 
"My Lord, 

" Thank you kindly for both your letters. 
It is, indeed, a damned thing that Wellesley % should 

* Ex-sergeant-major and publisher of the well-known Weekly Politi- 
cal Register, which began in 1802. He was elected member for Old- 
ham to the first reformed Parliament. 

t Afterwards 3rd Earl of Radnor ; Radical M.P. for Salisbury 
from 1802 to 1828 : died in 1869. 

X Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose share in the Convention of Cintra 
had been sent before a Court of Inquiry. 



90 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

give the lie direct to the protesting part of the state- 
ment of his friends. How the devil will they get over 
this? Now we have the rascals upon the hip. It is 
evident that he was the prime cause — the only cause — 
of all the mischief, and that from the motive of thwart- 
ing everything after he was superseded. Thus do we 
gay for the arrogance of that damned infernal family, 
ut it all comes at last to the House of Commons. The 
corruptions of that infamous [? place] sent them out,* 
and we are justly punished. ..." 

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr, Creevey. 

" Marlborotigh, Rio Janeiro, Oct. nth, 1808. 

". . . My whole heart and soul is with the 
Spaniards, and I hope and trust we shall support 
them and fight for them to the uttermost. . . . This 
great event in Spain must of course put a stop to any 
plan we may have had to emancipate the Spanish 
Colonies. ... I hope Bonoparte has now enough on 
his hands without thinking of invading England. He 
has overshot his mark, and, I have great hopes, has 
done for himself However, he will die game. ... I 
am very anxious to hear of my brother Jack f coming 
into play. I daresay he will have some Right Honble. 
Torpedo set over him to counteract his fire aud 
genius; but in spite of the Devil, he is invaluable 
wherever he is, and the soldiers know that. . . ." 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Southill, 20 Dec, 1808. 

" My dear Creevey, 

"To the usual occupations of hanging Mad 
Dogs, swearing Bastards, convicting Poachers, and 
such like country performances, has been added the 
amusement of Hunting, which I have resumed to the 
great benefit of my health, and the complete fugttation 
I hope, of all critical Deposits in consequence of high 

* Referring to the Indian appointments held respectively by 
the Marquess Wellesley and his brother Sir Arthur, and to the first 
Peninsular expedition of the latter. 

t General Sir John Moore. ^ 




ADMIRAL SIR GRAHAM MOORE. 



\To face f. 90. 



l8o6-8.] MR. WHITBREAD UNBOSOMS HIMSELF. 91 

living. Besides, we have had a House pretty full of 
Company, amongst which have been the Lady Grey 
and Lady Hannah ; so you will perceive with half an 
eye that, however acceptable your letter, as it really 
and truly was, you had but little chance of receiving 
any answer, till the frost came and locked up my Play- 
things. Now I can find a moment to thank you for it, 
and to ask for a continuation of your sentiments, 
both which I do with unaffected sincerity. I value 
your opinion, and you are one of the very few 
Persons who will say what you think of me to 
myself. I hope I deserve to be so treated. 

" You mix more with the World in general than 
1 am enabled to do from particular circumstances, 
and I believe you have the good of the Country at 
Heart. I further believe that you are interested in 
my Reputation. I acknowledge that in the course of 
the last Session of Parliament, I may have dwelt too 
much and too often upon topicks which are not 
generally interesting, because they are not generally 
understood, and I am quite aware that I may have 
spoken both too often and too much ; but you con- 
firm the feeling I before had that the Result of my 
Parliamentary Campaign was not injurious to my 
Fame, and I have heard from friends and foes the 
agreeable Truth which on that score you repeat to 
me. I shall go to the House of Commons to the 
coming Session with feelings very different from 
those which I carried there last January. You 
know that I was then piqued. I was not certainly 
ambitious of being placed nominally at the Head of a 
Party in the House of Commons, and really to be the 
Slave of a Party in the House of Lords ; but I had 
been ambitious of being thought the fit Person in all 
essentials to fill the vacant Place. By the Person 
who had {illegible} held it with so much Dignity and 
Reputation,* that Ambition had been disappointed. 
I had closed my Conference by saying — 'We shall 
all find our Level ; ' and however unconscious of it at 
the time, I daresay I was actuated by a desire to 
show that my level, at least in the present generation, 
was not very low. If what you say be true, my 

* Right Hon. George Ponsonby [1755- 181 7]. 



92 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IV. 

gratification on that score is complete. I am no 
Candidate for the Lead : I have what I wanted. It 
is said I ought to have been the Leader, and nothing 
should tempt me to take the place, because I know 
on many accounts I ought not to be Leader, and 
ought never to have been the Leader. So much for 
that. 

" I am fully aware of the apathy of the Publick 
and of their indifference towards the proceedings of 
the House of Commons, and of their Distrust of all 
Publick Men ; and I cannot but agree with you that 
poor Fox did overset the Publick opinion with regard 
to Statesmen. The last administration completed 
the job. Still, whilst I have a seat in Parliament, and 
can obtain a hearing, I cannot help proceeding as if 
I thought the World would give me credit for the 
Purity of my Motives. The tone you propose to me 
to adopt in the ensuing session I will certainly attend 
to with assiduity, and altho' I think in every point, 
both internal and external, our situation is nearly as 
forlorn and hopeless as any that ever was imagined 
by the most gloomy Politician, I will endeavour to 
act as if the case were not desperate — as if the 
corrupted and corruptors would be brought to a 
sense of Duty, and to see the Necessity of Retrench- 
ment and Reform. 

" I have written a shameful deal about myself, but 
as your letter was expressly on that subject, you must 

fardon me : and as it is for you alone that I write, 
am not afraid of sarcastical animadversion. . . ." 



( 93 ) 



CHAPTER V. 

1809. 

Canning and Castlereagh, hitherto at one in maintain- 
ing the Continental policy of Pitt, fell at issue in 1809 
as to the best means of carrying the same into effect 
The seeds of their difference had been sown in the 
dispute about the Convention of Cintra. Canning, as 
Foreign Secretary, advocated a concentration of the 
whole military forces of Britain upon the liberation 
of Spain ; Castlereagh, at the War Office, listened to 
expert advisers who had been damped by the retreat 
and death of Sir John Moore, and was urgent for 
creating diversions in other parts of Europe. Castle- 
reagh had his way, with the result, among others, 
that the most powerful expedition that had ever 
sailed from England — 40,000 troops and a splendid 
fleet with as many seamen and marines — were 
lamentably sacrificed in the swamps of Walcheren 
Island through the incompetence of their general ; 
while Sir Arthur Wellesley sailed in April to assume 
command in a second Peninsular campaign. Great 
was the fury of the anti-war party in Parliament by 
reason of this resuscitation of the hated Wellesleys, 
but not greater than their rage at Lord Grenville, 
who, although he had acted with the Opposition until 
now, refused to be drawn into an unpatriotic line of 



94 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

conduct, or at Grey, Tierney, and other Whigs who 
showed scruples at embarrassing the Governnaent in 
their operations. 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Southill, Jan. ii, 1809. 

" Dear Creevey, 

"Your letter reached me at Woburn Abbey 
amidst rows, festivities and masquerades. . . . By all 
I can collect from the Duke of Bedford and Fitz- 
Patrick it is not the desire of Ponsonby and the wise 
heads in London that any great effort should be made 
for an attendance. ... I have heard from Tierney 
since I saw you. He seems in flat despair about 
any effect to be produced by our exertions in Parlt. 
the ensuing session, and I am told that he wishes to 
abstain from active attendance altogether. I do not 
believe that any persons join with him in this feeling. 
I am sure I do not. It would be as unwise as im- 
practicable to be seen and not heard in the House of 
Commons; and as his plan does not go the whole 
length of secession, it will amount in practice to 
nothing at all. . . . Lord Grenville intends to come 
down on the first day and make a general attack: 
after that, he does not at present mean to follow the 
matter up with the assiduity he displayed last year 
in the House of Lords, nor, indeed, in the absence of 
Grey and Holland, could it be expected. ... I will 
only add for myself, that I have the greatest respect 
for Ld. Grenville, but that that respect would in 
no way prevent my taking any line I thought the 
right one. ..." 

" Southill, March 31, 1809. 

". . . Do pray tell me what is said about things in 
general, and in particular about myself, for I fear I 
am but roughly handled in a part of the world just 
now. . . . What do you think of the Westminster 
meeting? I cannot say how much I was surprized 
by Burdett's unprovoked attack upon the great 
agriculturists, who are, almost without exception, 
real friends of Liberty and Reform — none more so 



i8o9.] WALCHEREN. 95 

than the head of them, the Duke of Bedford, who 
thinks parliamentary reform indispensably necessary 
to our existence. ... I am to-day working hard at 
the local Militia; to-morrow I intend to go fox- 
hunting, and on Sunday I hope to be regaled by an 
answer from you. ..." 



Capt Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey. 

" London, July 1 8th, 1809. 

". . . The [Walcheren] expedition is expected to 
sail this week. The Naval part of it is well com- 
manded. Strachan is one of those in our service 
whom I estimate the highest. I do not believe he 
has his fellow among the Admirals, unless it be 
Pellew, for ability, and it is not possible to have more 
zeal and gallantry." 

" Brook Farm, Cobham, Surrey, Sept. 19th, 1809. 

" I go back to my ship on the 21st at Portsmouth, 
where she arrived from the Scheldt with a .cargo of 
sick. I expect to go with her there, as we are to 
continue under the command of Sir Richard Strachan,* 
and as there are 200 of her seamen still there in the 
gunboats, &c. It is my wish to serve with Strachan, 
as I know him to be extremely brave and full of zeal 
and ardour, at the same time that he is an excellent 
seaman, and, tho' an irregular, impetuous fellow, 
possessing very quick parts and an uncommon share 
of sagacity and strong sense. I hope Walcheren will 
be evacuated before we lose any more of our invalu- 
able men. . . . The Cannings are in a damned 
dilemma with this expedition and the victory of 
Talavera. They mean, I understand, to saddle poor 
Lord Chatham with the first, but who can they saddle 
the victory with? They dare not attack the Wel- 
lesleys as they did my poor brother.f What a cursed 
set you all are ! I certainly far prefer your set, but 
your set bungled miserably. However you are a 
more manly and gentlemanly set of bunglers and 

* Moore, as a Scot, spells Sir Richard's name more Scotico. 
t Sir John Moore. 



96 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

jobbers than the self-sufficient, chattering, intriguing 
Cannings. ... I wish Parliament were met, for 1 
long to see these fellows forced from their seats. 
As to peace, I can see no prospect of it as long as 
Bonoparte exists ; and I believe, for our comfort, he 
is a cursed temperate, hardy . knave, in mind and 
body. . . ." 

On 2 1 St September the quarrel between Castle- 
reagh and Canning culminated in a duel, involving 
the resignation of both Ministers. Lord Wellesley 
was recalled from Spain to succeed Canning at the 
Foreign Office, and Lord Liverpool took Castlereagh's 
place at the War Office. Another change shortly 
afterwards was the replacement of the Duke of 
Portland at the head of the Government by Mr. 
Perceval. 

Lord Folkestone, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Brooks's, Sept. 21, 1809. 

"Dear Creevey, 

"I cannot help writing to tell you what a 
curious scene is going on here. Old Portland is going 
both out of the Ministry and out of the world — both 
very soon, and it is doubtful which first; but the 
doubt arises from the difficulty of finding a new 
Premier, though both Perceval and Canning have 
offered themselves. Mulgrave is going too, they say 
— Castlereagh is quite gone, and Canning too, and the 
latter well nigh this morning quitted this sublunary 
globe, as well as the Foreign Office, for his friend 
Castlereagh on Wimbledon Common about 7 o'clock 
this morning as neatly as possible sent a pistol bullet 
through the fleshy part of his thigh. These heroes 
have quarrelled and fought about the Walcheren 
affair — Castlereagh damning the execution * of Lord 
Chatham, and Canning the plan of the planner, and 
being Lord Chatham's champion. Lord Chatham's 
friends, too, say that he is not at all to blame, that he 

* /.<?. the performance.. 



iSog.j CASTLEREAGH FIGHTS CANNING. 97 

has a complete case against Castlereagh, and further, 
that Sir Richard Strahan has made him amende 
honorable, saying that he meant by his letter to 
insinuate no blame against him, and that he is ready 
to say so whenever and wherever called upon to do 
so.* On the other hand, Castlereagh's friends are 
furious too — say that never man was so ill-used, and 
that he never will have any more connexion with his 
present colleagues. 

"Lord Yarmouth was Castlereagh's second — 
Charles Ellis t Canning's. Castlereagh was not 
touched; Canning's wound is likely to be very tedious 
— not dangerous. In the meantime, every official 
arrangement is at a stand, or at least quite unknown 
and the whole thing appears in utter confusion. 
Mother Cole % in vain shows himself all day long in 
St. James's Street ; the Whigs are thought of by no 
one ; the Doctor § cries * off,' and the King has not yet 
sent for Wardle I or Burdett. I really think that any 
one might be a minister for asking for it — Mr. Lee 
(the spokesman at Covent Garden) as well as another ; 
and if they do not take care, it will come to this. If 
Nobbs \ does not, the Mob will, name the Minister, 
and then — why not Mr. Lee? The scene would be 
diverting, if it did not look so serious ; but, I protest, 
I begin to think it alarming, considering that guineas 
at Winchester have passed for 225. in paper. 

" In the meantime, the diversions of Covent Garden 
go on bravely. The people behave well, and I hope 
they will beat the damned Managers. The Magis- 
trates there, as usual, behaved shamefully, and 
endeavoured to excite a riot, but did not succeed. 

* " The Earl of Chatham, with sword drawn, 
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strahan ; 
Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em, 
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham." 

t Charles Rose Ellis,M.P.[i77i-i84S],createdLordSeaford in 1826. 

X Mr. Tierney. 

§ Lord Sidmouth. 

II Colonel Wardle, M.P., who led the attack upon the Duke of 
York in the affair of Mrs. Clarke, which cost His Royal Highness his 
office as Commander-in-Chief. 

^ George III. 

H 



98 THE CREEVEY PAPERS, [Ch. V. 

Princess Amelia* is dying at Weymouth, and the 
Prince is not Hkely (I hear) to live long. 

"I think I have exhausted my budget of news. 
Remember me to the ladies and believe me — 

" Truly yours, 

" Folkestone." 



C. C. Western, M.P.,\ to Mr. Creevey. 

" Felix Hall, Sept. 24, 1809. 

"... I wish that j'^ou may persist in your literary 
pursuits and particularly directed as they have to a 
comparative view of the conduct and character of 
modern statesmen with men of better times. By 
Heavens! the contrast is too disgusting. I know as 
little of history, even of my own country, as any 
gentleman need do, but it is impossible not to pick 
up enough to see and admire to an excess the sense 
and spirit of the old patriots, and certainly we have 
proof enough of the present men to make one dead 
sick at the very thoughts of them. . . . The duel ! by 
the Lord, this surpasses everything. I have no doubt 
Canning was the aggressor, for the fellow is mad — 
evinced his insanity more than once last year. I 
delight in this duel. It is demonstration of the 
EFFICIENCY of our Couucils. Here is an Administration 
— the King's Oivn ; the entire army is their sacrifice — 
the national character and safety too — and yet the 
Country quite passive. It is really too much to bear. 
And we are to have a Jubilee ! It surpasses all imagi- 
nation. I am expecting this loyal County to proclaim 
a subscription to illuminate, &c. I cannot really 
submit to it, though I shall be branded as a traitor. 
Do you think it could be morally justifiable to carry 
one's hypocrisy and acquiescence so far as to concurr 
in ever so cold a manner on such a diabolical measure. 
Let me hear from you in these extraordinary events. . . ." 

* Youngest and favourite daughter of George III., whose madness 
was finally confirmed by sorrow for her death in 18 10. 

t Charles Callis Western [i 767-1 844], commonly known as Squire 
Western, was 42 years in Parliament, a staunch Protectionist, though 
a Whig, and champion of the agricultural interest. In 1833 he was 
raised to the peerage as Baron Western of Rivenhall. 



1809.] WHITBREAD ON THE SITUATION. 99 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Southill, Nov. 8, 1809. 

"... I am not surprised at people shaping towards 
Canning, because, as our friend Wilberforce shrewdly 
observes, he and I have been long enough in the 
political world not to be surprised at anything ; but 
I know that those who shall trust a politician of that 
stamp, deserve to be betrayed and will have their 
deserts. I hope at least I shall so conduct myself as 
to deserve the approbation and support of the worthy 
part of the community. . . . The Earl of Essex, Lord 
Carrington and Mr, Giles are here, and the D. of 
Bedford, and the above-named noblesse approve 
Southill. . . . Mr. Adkin is in good health and trying 
ever and anon to repeat the stories he heard from 
you when shooting together, in which he does 
not always succeed. Owen Williams is come to 
Bedford, is invited to Southill and has accepted the 
invitation. I am not a little amused with the liberty 
given to the Emperor of Austria to cut brushwood in 
certain forests which are taken from him, together 
with other large territories, and I should very much 
have liked to have been at the stag hunt at Fontaine- 
bleau. . . ." 

"Southill, Nov. 10, I 09. 

". . . Tom Adkin, who went to Bedford yesterday 
to meet his friend Williams at Palmer's, was the first 
person who told us of the King's letter to Perceval. 
Notwithstanding the awful presence of the Duke and 
the other Lords, he had got very drunk, and in his 
drunkenness he related this story, which he prefaced, 
as usual, by saying he had a fact to relate ; which fact 
everybody laughed at; but the next morning Lord 
Carrington showed me a letter from Horner, in which 
the same story is told very circumstantially, and his 
lordship was very much surprized that what was said 
by Mr. Adkin ' in that wild way ' should turn out to 
be true. I have no doubt that it is so, but the madness 
and folly of Perceval is inconceivable. Does he quite 
forget the narrow escape his administration had at 
starting from the mess made of Canning's trial? 



lOO THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

Tierney had not seen the letter when he was here, or, 
if he had, he was silent about it. Neither did he 
mention to us Perceval's letter to the D. of Northum- 
berland, altho' there was some discussion about the 
Earl Percy's taking a seat at the Treasury Board. 

"... 1 delight in the stoutness of Lord Holland : I 
believe him to have principles and to be capable of 
conduct worthy of his name : but he is hampered. 
It is a most fortunate circumstance that Canning has 
given mortal offence at Holland House. The wounds 
are deep, and I hope incurable. . . . You will hear 
Martyn's language from many mouths — great lamenta- 
tion at our not hanging together. I shall be still the 
person blamed ; but do you think in the present state 
of affairs that if either Lord Henr}'^ Petty or Lord 
George Cavendish were to be acknowledged by me 
as leader in the House of Commons there would be 
a chance of keeping a party together? Should I not 
lose all power in one way and gain nothing in the 
other? Should I not bind myself to a compact I 
could not keep ? Should I not at every turn be said 
to be endeavouring to outstrip my leader? and would 
it not be confusion worse confounded? Yet I sup- 
pose these are the only nostrums recommended. I 
cannot take them — this is between ourselves. . . . 
Pray tell me what Lord Derby says and pray tell me 
whether the report be true or false respecting Bur- 
dett's declaration against the Catholick Question. . . ." 

"Southill, Nov. i6, 1809. 

" Many thanks for your letter, which contained the 
first information I have received of Lord Lansdowne's 
death. It certainly very much changes the plans laid 
down by Tierney. You may be sure that my views 
as to my own personal conduct are the same as those 
stated in your letter to be the correct ones, and that 
I shall keep myself as quiet as if there was a leader 
in whom I confided and could act under. I shall not 
stir hand or foot. It is my intention to be prepared 
with such an amendment [to the Address] as you 
have described, and I told Tierney that such an 
amendment alone could satisfy the publick, or be 
consistent with the duty of a Member of Parliament." 



1809.] THE PASSAGE OF THE DOURO. lOI 

The following correspondence refers to Sir 
Arthur Wellesley's passage of the Douro in the face 
of Soult's army — one of the most brilliant and dash- 
ing operations of the third Peninsular campaign, 
1809-14, of which it was the first act. Wellesley, 
having landed at Lisbon, in April, with 21,500 men, 
found himself near the centre of a vast semi-circle 
of French corps numbering upwards of 200,000. He 
decided to strike before his enemies could concen- 
trate upon him, and marched straight upon Oporto, 
170 miles to the north, where Soult lay with 24,000 
men. The French Generals Franceschi and Mermet, 
falling back before his advance, retreated into Oporto, 
destroying the pontoon bridge across the deep and 
rapid Douro. The romantic episode of the barber of 
Oporto and his skiff, the resource and daring which 
Colonel Waters displayed in using these humble 
instruments to bring barges over from the enemy's 
shore, the nerve of Wellesley and the splendid 
courage of his soldier's which seized and clinched 
the slender opportunity, can never be better de- 
scribed than they have been in Napier's glowing 
narrative. 

Major-Genl. R. C. Ferguson * to Samuel Whitbread, M.P. 

"Tickhill, Bantry, 21 July, 1809. 

" My dear Sir, 

"... I last night got a letter from Sir 
Arthur Wellesley and think it best to send you the 
original without making any comment on it. He is 
a very fine manly fellow, and I am sure (whatever 

* [Sir] Ronald Crawfurd Ferguson [i 773-1841], 2nd son of 
William Ferguson, of Raith, was M.P. for Kirkcaldy burghs i8o6- 
1830 ; commanded the Highland Brigade of 42nd and 78th regiments 
at Vimeiro. 



i02 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

were the misrepresentations of the Ministers) you 
shd. not mean to say anything personally disre- 
spectful to him. I know that in many points you 
like him, and I shd. be very sorry that anything shd. 
occur which shd. remove the mutual good opinion 
you have of each other. It is one of those things in 
which no advice can be given, and it must be left en- 
tirely to yourself, but I trust you will pardon me if 1 
express a hope that you will either write a few lines 
to him or to me, such as I can send to him, which will 
do away any unpleasant impression that the news- 
paper reports may have occasioned. 

" I desire, &c., 

" R. C. Ferguson." 



Lieut. -Gen. Sir Arthur Welksley to Major-Gen. R, C. 
Ferguson (enclosed m the above). 

" Abrantes, 22nd June, 1809. 

" My dear Ferguson, 

" I am in general callous to the observations 
of party and to the remarks of writers in the news- 
papers, but I acknowledge that I have been a little 
disturbed by a statement which it appears was made 
in the House of Commons by Mr. Whitbread — viz. : 
that I had exaggerated the success of the Army 
under my command, or, in other words, that I had 
lyed. 

" I complain that Mr. Whitbread before he made 
this statement in the House did not read my letter 
with attention ; if he had, he would have seen, first, 
that we were engaged on the loth only with cavalry 
and a small body of infantry, with some guns ; 
secondly, on the nth with about 4000 infantry and 
some squadrons of cavalry; and on the 12th I stated 
nothing of numbers, but that the French were under 
command of Soult. 

" From the nature of the action it was impossible 
for me to see the numbers engaged, so as to form an 
estimate of them in a dispatch ; but I saw Soult, and 
knew when I was writing, not only that he was in 
the action, but that he was either wounded or had a 



1809.] SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY REMONSTRATES. 103 

fall from his horse ; and I saw a very large body of 
troops march out of Oporto to the attack, I Have 
since heard that the whole of the French infantry in 
Portugal, with the exception of Loison's Corps, which 
might amount to 4000 men, were in this attack, and 
this [illegible] estimated to be io,c5oo men. We took 
two pieces more cannon in action than I stated in my 
dispatch, and I believe the return of cannon which 
the French were obliged to leave on that day was 
not less than 50 pieces. 

"After that, I don't think it quite fair that I 
should, in my absence, be accused of exaggeration, 
or, in other words, lying. I believe you know that I 
am not in the habit of sending exaggerated accounts 
of transactions of this kind. In the first place, I 
don't see what purpose accounts of that description 
are to answer; and in the second place, the Army 
must eventually see them ; they are most accurate 
criticks : I should certainly forfeit their good opinion 
most justly if I wrote a false account even of their 
actions, and nothing should induce me to take any 
step which should with justice deprive me of that 
advantage. As you are well acquainted with Mr. 
Whitbread, I shall be obliged to you if you will 
mention these circumstances to him. I have thought 
it better to set him right in this way than to get any 
friend of mine in the House of Commons to have a 
wrangle with him on the subject. 

" Believe me. Yours most sincerely, 

"Arthur Wellesley. 

" I'll tell you what I might have said without 
exaggeration — that, whenever we were engaged, we 
had fewer numbers than the enemy." 



Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Sir Arthur Wellesley. 

" Southill, July 30, i8og. 
" Dear Sir, 

"I am very much concern'd to find by a 
letter I have received from Genl. Ferguson, inclosing 
one from you to him, that a report in some of the 
newspapers of what I am supposed to have said in 



104 THE CREEVEY PAPERS, [Ch. V. 

the House of Commons relative to the operations 
of the army under your command at Oporto has 
been the cause of any uneasiness to you. You know 
full well that the newspapers very commonly mis- 
represent what falls from members of Parliament, and 
that it is impossible to answer for what is put in by 
the reporters. In this case I really don't know what 
I have been made to say, but I can venture to assure 
you that nothing disrespectful towards yourself ever 
fell from my mouth, because all the feelings of my 
mind are of a nature so entirely the reverse. I 
have upon all occasions expressed my real opinion 
of you, and I trust that political differences have 
never led me, even in public, to underrate your past 
services, or my hopes of your future ones. I dare- 
say 1 did express my opinion that the rejoicings of 
your friends in power upon the receipt of your Dis- 
patch was greater than the occasion call'd for, in 
which was not to be included any sentiment dero- 
gatory to you. I am sorry that your very important 
occupations should be interrupted, even for the short 
time necessary to read this letter, by any circum- 
stance relating to me ; but I could not help writing 
to you, and I must detain you one moment longer to 
assure you that I wish you all possible success, and 
that I expect from an army commanded by you every 
happy result that its strength can possibly effect. 
" I am, My dear Sir, Your very faithful servant, 

" S. Whitbread." 



Lteut.-Gen. Sir Arthur Wellesley to Samuel Whit- 
bread, M.P, 

" Badajos, Sep. 4, 1809.* 

" Dear Sir, 

" 1 am very much obliged to you for your 
letter of the loth of August \_sic] which I received 
yesterday. As I had more than once received from 
you those marks of your attention and of your good 
opinion which you have been pleased to repeat in 

* The date of Wellesley's patent as Viscount Wellington of 
Talavera. 



i8o9.] MR. WHITBREAD HAS EXPLAINED. 105 

your letter, and as it indeed appeared by the report 
of your speech which I read that you had expressed 
the same sentiments on that occasion, I was anxious 
to remove from your mind an impression which it 
appeared had been made upon it, and which must 
have been injurious to me — that I had made an ex- 
aggerated statement of the operations of the troops 
under my command. In fact, I did not state with 
what numbers of the enemy the army was engaged 
when it passed the Douro, as I did not know them 
when I wrote my dispatch ; and that was what I 
wanted to explain to you. I will not enter into any 
statement of our affairs in this part of the world ; I 
daresay that you will hear and read enough, and 
speak more upon them than some of us will like, I 
rather think, however, that between numbers on the 
side of the enemy and strength of position on ours, 
we are so equally balanced that neither party will do 
the other much mischief It will be satisfactory, how- 
ever, for you to hear that the French begin to be con- 
vinced ' que les Frangois ne seront jamais les maitres 
des Anglois,' 

" Ever, dear Sir, Yours most faithfully, 

" Arthur Wellesley." 



General Ferguson io Samuel Whitbreadf M.P. 

"Raith, Oct. i, 1809. 
" My dear Sir, 

" I have to thank you for your letter of the 
25th ulto. accompanied by Sir Arthur's to you. With 
respect to his rashness in advancing so far into 
Spain, I fear something may be said; but I should 
fain hope that in his account of the battle of Tala- 
vera he will be acquitted of the charge of exaggera- 
tion. Twenty pieces of cannon and 5 standards 
taken from the enemy will be strong evidence in his 
favour. I have had a long letter from him, in which 
he gives a melancholy picture of the Spanish army 
and of the Government. Indeed he seems to have 
no hopes of the ultimate success of the Spaniards. 
He tells me not to think of having anything to do 
with him or his army, so my trip to Spain is at an 



I06 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

end. We shall probably have fighting enough at 
home, beginning with a war of words, which (if the 
system of Government is not compleatly chang'd) will 
end in blows. If any of our friends come in, I hope 
they will not put the convenience of one individual 
in competition with the existence of the country. If 
they do, I hope that no honest man will support 
them. If Parlt. meets in Novr. I shall go to town, 
and should you be at Southill I shall not pass your 
door." 

Creevey resembled many of us in that he often 
began to keep a journal, and as often left off doing so. 
His diary during the autumn of 1809 was rather more 
continuous than usual. 



Journal. 

"25^/f Sept., 1809, — Left Whitfield for Gosforth on 
our way to Howick, and learnt there that a King's 
Messenger had passed thro' Newcastle in the morning 
on his way to Howick to Lord Grey. 

" 26th. — Sent on to Newcastle from Gosforth and 
ascertained the Messenger had been at Howick, and 
was returned with letters from Lord Grey, but that he 
himself was not gone to London, so we proceed to 
Howick. 

" Nothing said before dinner of the Messenger, but 
after dinner Lord Grey mentioned that a Messenger 
had brought offers from the Ministers to him, and that 
similar ones had been sent to Lord Grenville, and 
that he (Lord Grey) had sent a refusal. Does not 
mention what the. offers were, but that the Ministers 
talked of an extended administration. Conversation 
about Castlereagh's duel with Canning. Lord Grey 
thinks Castlereagh in the right : that his cause of 
complaint against Canning was the latter having told 
the King and Duke of Portland three months ago he 
could not remain in the Cabinet with Castlereagh, and 
yet never mentioning this to Castlereagh, but living 
apparently well with him. Then the cause of the duel 
— Lord Grey considers Canning's resignation owing 



i8o9.] JOURNAL. 107 

to his not being able to succeed Duke of Portland as 
Prime Minister. Curran the Irish Master of the Rolls, 
Geo. Ponsonby and Frederic Ponsonby (Lady Grey's 
two brothers), Lord Grey and myself the party after 
dinner. , . . Lord Grey decidedly against the plan of 
the campaign in Holland, and acquits Lord Chatham 
of all blame in the execution of it, and still more 
decided in reprobation of Lord Wellington's Spanish 
campaign and of the conduct of Ministers about the 
battle of Talavera, 

" Lord Grey very shy and artificial with me about 
politicks — makes frequent mention of Sir Francis 
Burdett and the No-Party men, and says, in answer 
to an observation of mine that the present Govern- 
ment can never last, however patched up, that in the 
present state of the House of Commons any Govern- 
ment may stand. I consider these observations as 
meant at my conduct last session, for doing all I could 
to expose what I thought the meanness and folly of 
his (Lord Grey's) party, of which I had till then been 
one. I take, however, no notice of these observations, 
as it is not necessary I should apply them to myself ; 
and I am more convinced than ever that I was right 
last session, and that the leaders of Whig party were 
to the last degree contemptible. I am in no way 
committed with Sir Francis Burdett or any views of 
his. I know him well, and think upon the whole 
unfavorably of him, but will not say so to Lord Grey 
without his giving me a fair and proper occasion for 
so doing. 

" Wednesday, 2'jth. — . . . Nothing passed material 
after dinner. Some hit at my newspaper the Statesman 
as a no-party paper. Curran gone. 

" Thursday, 28/A, //// Oct. $th. — . . . Conversation 
after dinner and after supper always as artificial as 
the devil. Lord Grey shewing his spite at my conduct 
the last session, and his own folly by the following 
observations made by him — 'The Duke of York's 
business last session in the House of Commons never 
gave the King a moment's uneasiness.' — 'The Duke of 
York was the best Commander-in-chief the army ever 
had, except in the field I ^ — 'Adam was used shamefully 
in the House of C. last session.' — ' Lord Castlereagh's 
business in the House of Commons last session about 



I08 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

the writership did not do him the slightest injury.' — 
* Canning calling Coke of Norfolk a landed grandee 
was damned good.' — * Romilly had entirel}^ failed in 
the House of Commons.' — 'The first man this country 
has seen since Burke's time is Brougham.' — ' Piggott 
was the best speaker in the House next to Canning.' 
. . . Lord Grey says tho' he is against proscription in 
forming an administration, yet Canning is the last man 
he would unite with. 

" Mrs. Creevey receives a letter from Lady Petre 
begging her and me to write letters of introduction in 
Edinburgh for her son, young Lord Petre, who is 
going there. Mrs. Creevey asks Lord Grey to let her 
send a note to Alnwick to bring him and his tutor 
over here. Lord and Lady Grey make such difficulty 
about beds, and, in short, fling such cold water upon 
the proposal, that we drop the subject. Take notice, 
there was room in the house — plenty. Lord Petre's 
family have spent ;!^i 5,000 at least in supporting Lord 
Grey's party in elections, &c., &c., besides great 
intimacy between the families. So much for gratitude 
in political leaders to their supporters ! . . . 

^'Friday, Oct. 6th. — Sir Chas. Monk and Loch the 
counsel came over from Alnwick sessions to dine 
at Howick, and as they were both very free-spoken 
and honest politicians. Lord Grey seemed devilishly 
frightened after dinner least anything should be said 
upon the subject. It was stupid enough. Loch and I 
had a good walk before dinner, and gave the Whigs 
their deserts. 

" Saty., ytk — We leave Howick with all kinds of 
civilities — squeezing of hands, &c., as if all parties 
were as pleased as Punch; and so, in fact, it was — 
they to get quit of us, and we to regain our liberty. 
Get to Gosforth, Charles Brandling's, Mrs. Creevey's 
brother and member for Newcastle, an inveterate 
Pittite, but who is quite stunned with the figure the 
Government has made. 

"Sat, Oct. i^th. — We leave Gosforth for Low 
Gosforth. Little done or said at Gosforth during our 
stay about politicks. Charles Brandling all for Canning 
against Castlereagh, but evidently shook in his attach- 
ment to Canning from Castlereagh's letter and state- 
ment in the papers, and Canning's reply. Damns 



iSd9.] JOURNAL 100 

Perceval, Eldon and above all the Grenvilles — in 
favor of Lord Grey. 

" Monday, Oct 23. — Leave Low Gosforth for Shot- 
ton, Ralph Brandling's, county of Durham. At Low 
Gosforth nothing but eating and drinking. . . . We 
receive a very kind letter from Lord Milton, inviting 
us to his father Ld. Fitzwilliam's at Wentworth, which 
we are sorry we can't accept. 

" 2'jth. — We leave Shotton on our way south. 
Terrible dull work at Shotton. . . . 

" Sotk. — Arrive at Whitbread's — Southill, Bedford- 
shire — Whitbread and Lady Elizabeth Whitbread 
(sister to Lord Grey) quite delighted to see us. 
Nothing but politicks between Whitbread and me 
from the moment we meet just before dinner till bed- 
time. Quite against Canning and the whole Govern- 
ment — approves Lord Grey's letter to Perceval very 
much, but agrees with me that in the general 
sentiments he delivers upon all publick subjects, he 
talks like a madman. I tell him everything that 
has passed at Howick, about which he just thinks 
with me. 

"Sunday, T,ist. — Whitbread shows me a letter 
written to him by Grey upon his receiving Perceval's 
offer, containing a copy of Perceval's letter and Grey's 
answer. I take copies of them. The writing on such 
an occasion very right in Grey, and the letter in many 
parts kind, but in many others very arrogant, and just 
treating Whitbread as a person entirely separated 
from Grey in politicks. Whitbread in his answer very 
affectionate to Grey, and very stout in the support of 
his own conduct at the same time. 

Same day, he shews me a correspondence between 
Sir Arthur Wellesley (Lord Wellington) and himself, 
occasioned by a speech of Whitbread's in the House 
of Commons, stating that Wellesley's account of the 
battle of the Douro in Spain * was an exaggeration. 
This was brought about by General Ferguson, a 
friend of both, a member of the House of Commons 
and a most admirable man. ... I hate Wellesley, but 
there are passages in his letter that made me think 
better of him. . . . 

* It was fought, of course, in Portugal. 



no THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

" On the same day, Whitbread shews me a corre- 
spondence between Tierney and him. . . . Tierney, 
thinking Grenville and Grey are coming in, writes a 
letter to Whitbread offering his services to set every- 
thing to right that may be wrong, and, in short, 
meaning to bring Grey and Whitbread together again 
in politicks, and to procure for Whitbread an}'' place 
in the supposed new government he may wish. . . . 
Whitbread, considering this very friendly in Tierney, 
returns him a very kind answer, shewing clearly he 
has no disinclination to office, but at the same time, 
stating he will not relinquish an atom of his political 
principles or make the least compromise. 

" Whitbread evidently quite taken in by Tierney 
in this proceeding. Tierney finds out that Lord 
Grey's party, if they come into office, can't carry on 
the Government in the House of Commons against 
Whitbread ; so now, instead of abusing him as was 
done all last session, he is to be cajoled. 

" Saty., Nov. 4. — We leave Whitbread's for London, 
having spent a very happy time at Southill, and with 
a most firm conviction that Whitbread — tho' rough in 
his manners — tho' entirely destitute of all taste or 
talent for conversation, and tho' apparently almost 
tyrannical in his deportment to his inferiors — is a man 
of the very strictest integrity, with the most generous, 
kind and feeling heart. 

" Lord and Lady Ponsonby pass us on the road to 
Southill. The Whitbreads wanted us to stay to meet 
them, but we would not, because Lord Ponsonby had 
been always just of opinion with Whitbread and me 
about politicks, till some months past, when he became 
quite against us, as I think, not only without reason, 
but against all reason; and as I know he is hard 
pressed for money, I suppose he is after a place, and 
1 cut him as a shabby politician. 

" Sunday, Nov. 5. — Arrived in London. The first 
person I see is McMahon M.P. and Prince of Wales's 
Secretary, I go" in with him to Carlton House and 
write my name for the Prince. McMahon shows me 
a copy of a most mean letter from Perceval to the 
Duke of Northumberland, imploring his support of the 
Government, tho' a stranger to the Duke, and offering 
Earl Percy a seat at the Treasury Board. I saw the 



i8o9.] JOURNAL. JII 

Duke's answer — a dry refusal, with thanks for all 
Perceval's compliments. 

"McMahon tells me a letter is certainly shewn 
about by Perceval, written to him by the King, threat- 
ening to dissolve the parliament if they don't support 
his Ministry. 

^^ Monday, Nov. 6. — I learn from Whishaw — a par- 
ticular friend of mine, who lives almost entirely at 
Holland House — that the language now held there is 
that Grey and Whitbread are become quite united 
again in politicks — that all differences are at an end — 
that Lord Ponsonby (Lady Grey's brother) is gone to 
Southill to confirm the union, and that Tierney and 
the Duke of Bedford are to go from Woburn to 
Southill on Tuesday, and Lord Carrington, Lord 
Essex, and Giles of the House of Commons [illegible] 
the same day, and all this visiting is represented at 
Holland House as a political mission to Whitbread to 
confirm him in his reported reconciliation with Grey. 
All this evidently got up by Tierney. There is no 
foundation whatever for saying Grey and Whitbread 
are more alike in politicks than they have been these 
two years. Tierney used to tell everybody, as he has 
often done me, that Grey and Whitbread were more 
separated than they actually were, because he then 
thought he could do without Whitbread ; and the 
sooner he was flung off the better. Now he finds he 
can't do without him, and he states, without an atom of 
foundation, that Grey and Whitbread are the same, and 
tries to cajole Whitbread into thinking so. I write to 
Whitbread and tell him all I hear from Holland House. 

" Tuesday, yth. — Lord Kensington and Ward dine 
with us, both full of their jokes at the expense of our 
political leaders. 

" Wedy.y %th. — I have a letter from Whitbread. He 
says Lord Ponsonby never said a word upon politicks, 
Saturday, all the evening — that Whitbread was ill on 
Sunday and did not appear, and that my Lord was off 
on Monday before Whitbread. So much for his 
'mission.' He says Tierney and the Duke and other 
Lords are there. 

" I meet in the streets several politicians, tho' the 
town is very empty — Owen Williams, Lord Kensington, 
Cavendish, Bradshaw, Maxwell, Lord Ossulston, 



112 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

Horner, Martin, Ward — all in the House of Commons 
— all, except Horner, inclined to talk very contemptu- 
ously of our political leaders. Horner is for doing- 
nothing in the House of Commons this approaching 
session — damns the people as rank Tories — I defend 
them, as having been betrayed by political leaders, 
and am myself all for impeachment* Martin is all for 
attacking the Ministers, but is affraid we shan't hang 
together. . . . 

'^Friday, Nov. lotk. — Lord Kensington and Sir 
Philip Francis dine with us. Wardle's motion for a 
new trial against Mr. Clarke and the Wrights had 
taken place the day before in the King's Bench, and 
rule nisi granted. . . . Wardle shews me a correspon- 
dence between him and Lord Folkestone upon the sub- 
ject of a communication made to Folkestone by Sir 
Rd. Philips for Wardle's use in his legal proceedings 
against Mrs. Clarke, which Folkestone had withheld 
from Wardle and shewn to Mrs. Clarke. Folkestone 
appears to have acted wrong under some blind attach- 
ment to Mrs. Clarke. Wardle had thought at one 
time of calling him out, but now means to subpoena 
him on the approaching trial. I must prevent this if 
possible : it will produce a quarrel between the two, 
and do great mischief with the publick to have these 
two quarrel who have hitherto been so well together 
in the same pursuit. 

" Saturday, nth. — I find by a letter from Whitbread 
this day that Tierney has been proposing Lord Henry 
Petty or Lord George Cavendish as leader of our party 
in the House of Commons ! Whitbread says he never 
can submit to it. Was there ever anything so con- 
temptible ! but the reason is obvious — Tierney wants 
Lord George to be the nominal leader, and himself 
the real one. 

" We dine at Lord Derby's — nobody but us. 
Lord Derby excellent in every respect, as he always 
is, and my Lady still out of spirits for the loss of her 
child, but surpassing even in her depressed state all 
your hereditary nobility I have ever seen, tho' she 
came from the stage to her title.f 

* Of the Duke of York. 

t Eliza Farren, a well-known actress, became the 2nd countess of 
the 1 2th Earl of Derby. 



i8o9.] JOURNAL. II3 

^'Sunday, 12th. — I meet Abercromby in my walk. 
He is as artificial as the devil — will scarcely touch 
politicks — thinks, however, the Wellesleys will now be 
beat if they are attacked properly ; upon which I fire 
into our leaders for their meanness in not having 
attacked them long ago. He is very sore at such 
observation, and when I tell him that Wardle is on 
his legs again, all he can say is — ' Wardle is the agent 
of the Duke of Kent.' Was there ever such nonsense ? 
C. Warren the lawyer dines with us, and, as usual, 
full of sensible observations. He predicts the present 
reign will end quietly from the popularity of the King, 
but that when it ends, the profligacy and unpopularity 
of all the Princes, with the situation of the country as 
to financial difficulties, and the rapidly and widely 
extended growth of Methodism, will produce a storm. 

" Monday, i ^th. — Calcraft, Wardle and Payne dine 
with us. . . . Wardle says he is quite sure of suc- 
ceeding both in gaining a new trial against Wright 
and in his prosecution of Mrs. Clarke and Wright for 
perjury, and he takes the whole business, as he has 
done throughout, with the most perfect composure. 
I can't bring myself to think there is anything bad in 
him, and I have looked at him in all ways in order to 
be sure of him. I know he is in distress for money, 
but all the men from his part of the country dine with 
him and speak well of him. ... In his approaching 
prosecution he means to subpoena the Duke of York 
and Lord Moira and Lord Chichester about the 
;^ 1 0,000 given to Mrs. Clarke for suppressing the 
publication of the Duke of York's letters to her. 
Warren has seen these letters : they were laid before 
him by counsel to advise whether they might be 
printed with safety to the publisher, and he told me 
such stuff was never seen. They consist of the Duke 
of York's observations or information to Mrs. Clarke 
concerning the Royal family — his hatred of the Prince 
of Wales — his jokes about the Queen and the intrigues 
and accouchement of the Princess — all in the coarsest 
and most licentious language. What a damnable 
piece of work the examination of these Lords and 
Princes will be. 

" Tuesday, 14/A. — I find in the streets Lord Lans- 
downe is dead, and Lord Henry Petty of course 

I 



114 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

succeeds him, so he leaves the House of Commons, 
and his being leader is at an end. I write to tell 
Whitbread. ... 

" Wednesday, i^th. — Sir John Sebright, Ld. Ken- 
sington, Western and [illegible] all dined with us. . . : 

/' Thursday, i6th. — -We dine at Lord Derby's : 
present — Lord Holland, Lord Grenville, Tierney, 
Lord Kinnaird and young Eden (Lord Auckland's 
second son). One should have thought at such a 
time the conversation of such a party might have 
been worth hearing, but nothing could be lower — 
imitations of old Lansdowne and Lord Thurlow by 
Lord Holland, and such like things. The only 
political thing was — Lord Derby says, from all he 
hears, he thinks the appointment of so young a man 
as Manners Sutton * to Judge Advocate has given such 
offence, that a motion upon that subject would be a 
good one for the House of Commons at the opening 
of the session ; upon which Tierney shrugs his head 
and says — ^Personal questions never answer.' Was 
there ever such contemptible stuff at such a crisis ? 
But this is the judicious leader, or rather adviser 
behind the curtain of the Whigs and Grenvilles. 
What is there that relates to all or any of the present 
Government that is not a personal question ? 

'' Saturday, \%th. — We come down to Brighton. 
Walk all the morning with different people, but Sir 
Charles Pole is the only politician : shews me a letter 
from Tierney, saying Parliament does not meet till 
20th January, and that therefore the Ministers were 
sure of another quarterns salary. This a Privy Coun- 
cillor too ! what a low blackguard. He evidently is 
writing to Pole and others to coax them into voting 
as he does. Pole tells me the way in which Perceval 
has sollicited the assistance of N. Vansittart, Adding- 
ton (Lord Sidmouth), Bragge Bathurst and others of 
that party, and of their answers ; by which it appears 
to me they turn out, as they always have been — shabby 
fellows, and Sir Charles himself, I believe, is not 
much better. 

" Grattan here, with whom I have frequent long 
walks. It is impossible to meet with anyone more 

* He was then 27, and became Speaker in 18 17, 



i8o9.] JOURNAL. II5 

amiable and unaffected ; and considering his success- 
ful and brilliant publick life, his absence of all vanity 
is quite miraculous. His opinions upon present 
political persons in this country are worth nothing. 
He is a kind of stranger in a new country — has no 
longer any object of ambition — seems to consider his 
day as past, and to be perfectly satisfied with his 
lot. . . . 

"This trial of Wardle's indictment against Mrs. 
Clarke and the Wrights being to come on the first 
week in December, Western and I correspond upon 
the necessity of getting Lord Folkestone to London, 
and trying to set everything to right between him and 
Wardle before the trial comes on, as well for both 
their sakes as for the general cause.* . . . 

** Monday, December II. — Folkestone had been in- 
duced by Mrs. Clarke to think Wardle was an agent 
of the Duke of Kent, and that in that capacity he had 
bound himself by promises of great service to her 
which he had afterwards forfeited. He is now per- 
fectly convinced that the whole of Mrs. Clarke's 
account to him was fabrication, and he tells both 
Wardle, Western and myself that he has a higher 
opinion of Wardle than ever." 

Creevey goes on to state, in terms too little 
equivocal for modern taste, that Lord Folkestone 
admitted that he had a liaison with Mrs. Clarke while 
she was under the protection of the Duke of York — 
a circumstance only worthy of record as throwing 
light upon the character of the woman who cost His 
Royal Highness so dearly. 



* Mrs. Clarke, the Duke of York's mistress, used her influence to 
secure the promotion of officers, who paid her handsomely for her 
assistance. Colonel Wardle brought the matter before the House of 
Commons in January, 1809 ; it was referred to Committee of the 
whole House, which, while it acquitted His Royal Highness of having 
made any pecuniary advantage himself, reported very unfavourably 
upon his discretion, and he was permitted to resign the command-in- 
chief. He was, however, restored in 181 1. 



Il6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. V. 

''This discovery again frightens Western and 
myself to the greatest degree, considering, as we do, 
that should this fact appear upon the trial, it will be 
fatal to Folkestone's character. Folkestone not sen- 
sible of this at first, but we frighten him to death by 
telling him of his danger. 

^^ October 30, 181 1. — As for poor Wardle, he is 
ruined since I last mentioned him — ruined by his 
excessive folly, and being so full of himself from his 
former success that it was no longer safe to advise 
him, and so he foundered last session upon a motion 
about the punishment of some soldier." 



( 117 



CHAPTER VI. 

1810. 

Although the Government had sustained a stunning 
blow in the loss of its two most prominent members, 
Castlereagh and Canning, the Opposition found them- 
selves in a still more disorganised plight, so as to be 
quite unready to gain any advantage from the confusion 
of their enemies. The rising spirit of the country 
withdrew all attention from everything except the 
war; the denunciations of ministerial measures and 
blunders fell upon deaf ears, and the Opposition, as 
is commonly to be seen under similar circumstances, 
took to quarrelling among themselves, mistrusting 
each other, unable to decide upon the choice of a 
leader. Not from want of candidates, to be sure ; it 
is amusing to read of the bewildering variety which 
was offered to them. 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Southill, Jan. 7, 1810. 

", . . Lord Grey passed a night here on his way 
to town. He was determined to be, and was, very 
kind, but we should not have held it long. It seems 
not decided that Ponsonby is not still to be continued 
Leader. I said 'not mine.' I had been disowned in 
such a manner on a topick of the greatest importance 
I could no longer fight under his banner. Lord Grey 
said if he chose to retain his situation he felt himself 



Il8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

bound to support him. I could not help smiling, but 
I said only that I questioned much whether there 
would be any followers. He said he believed I was 
much mistaken. . . . Now write to me once more and 
tell me what you think of my state of mind from what 
I have written. I always take advice and criticism in 
good part from a friend — I know I do — so cut away 
boldly. I have no object but the publick good : I 
want nothing: I seek nothing. If I do wrong, 'tis 
because I am not wise eno' to do right. . . . All about 
Lord Grey is quite private." 

Lord Milton, M.P.;* to Mr. Creevey. 

" Milton, Jan. 8, 1810. 
"Dear Creevey, 

"I fully agree with you upon the trial that 
is about to be given to the H. of C. and lamentable 
indeed will it be if the issue is favourable to the 
Gentleman at the end of the Mall,t as Michael Angelo t 
calls him. It must completely damn Parliament if it 
takes no notice of the authors of the expedition to 
Walcheren, and all the disgraces and losses conse- 
quent upon their mismanagement in all quarters. . . . 
I am rather uneasy at hearing that the old trader^ is 
to be the manufacturer of the amendment, but, short 
of a sacrifice of principle, I think a great deal ought 
to be done to embrace as many persons as possible ; 
for, after all, nothing but a majority in Parlt. can lead 
to the practical benefit of getting rid of the present 
administration. ... I trust the Marquis || will meet 
with the fate you predict for him. He is a great 
calamity inflicted upon England, and I heard to-day 
that, upon this last business with America, he has sent 
a proposition to her, the alternative of which is to be 
war. Here is the advantage of having the Conqueror 
of the East for our foreign secretary." 

* Afterwards 5th Earl Fitzwilliam. 
t George III. 

t Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P., whose house in Whitehall was a, 
constant and favourite rendezvous of the Whig party. 
§ Mr. Whitbread. 
II Marquess Wellesley- 



i8io.] THE SENTIMENTS OF BROUGHAM. II9 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"1810. 
". . . The Hon. Company are (as well as all other 
companies and most individuals) singularly obliged 
to Providence for restoring our gracious Sovereign. 
His death or idiocy v^rould have been in the nature of 
a quo warranto. He is nearly recovered, and I hope 
to God will be able to prorogue. If a regency had 
been got up for a short time, with the present men 
as its ministers, I am confident Eldon, Perceval, &c. 
(who, when driven to desperation never think of 
violent measures, but only become more base, cun- 
ning, mean, &c.) would have licked the dust before the 
P. to good purpose. I wish the old ruffian,* however, 
may not have renewed his term. . . , Melville (as I 
learn from Scotland) wrote to Ld. Grenville urging 
him to have me put out of Parliament, on the ground 
that I was suspected of writing an article in the Edinr. 
Review highly disrespectful to Pitt ! . . . My authority 
is exceedingly good — one of the law officers of Govt, 
in Scotland. ... I conclude the article alluded to is 
Ld. Erskine's speeches ; and, without saying I wrote 
it, I can only say I am ready to avow all it contains, 
in any place, and before any number of Grenvilles, 
Pitts or Dundasses. . . ." 

" 1 8 10, Temple. 

"... I hope I need not assure you that my opinion 
as to Pitt is much too deeply rooted, and formed upon 
too long an examination of that Arch-juggler's pro- 
ceedings, to be at any time even in the least degree 
modified by any reason of party expediency or party 
concert. 1 need scarcely add that no other motive 
(such as fear of giving offence) could ever reach me. 
Indeed, any notion of such sentiments giving offence 
in any quarter of our friends, could only have the 
effect of making one speak more loudly if possible. 
At the same time, I fancy that personal feelings are all 
that influence the Grenvilles on this point — I should 
rather say Ld. G. himself, for the rest don't seem to 
have liked Pitt. ... I agree with you entirely as to 

* George III. 



120 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

the probable fate of Pitt's reputation. He was indeed 
a poor hand at a measure, whatever he may have been 
at a speech. This all men may easily perceive ; but 
a little inquiry into the facts of such questions as the 
Regency — Slave Trade — Restriction and E. I. Coy. 
makes one almost disbelieve the evidence of recollec- 
tion, and doubt whether he actually did succeed in 
hoodwinking the country for twenty years . . . As to 
this rebellion agt. legitimate authority, Ld. H[olland] 
won't touch the subject, no more will young C* nor 
Eden, nor Macdonald, &c. ; and Lord Derby being 
applied to by Thanet, declined interfering, as did the 
D. of Devonshire and Lord G[rey], each on his own 
ground — Lord D. on that of general, vague and ground- 
less panic, quite worthy of his panic when Gladstone 
and Co. went to Knowsley and made him give over 
supporting us at L'pool." 



Lord Folkestone to Mr. Creevey. 

" Jany. 9, 18 10. 

" Dear Creevey, 

"Are you dead or sick? or have you got a 
place? that I do not hear from you. Do not be so 
infernally lazy, but write. ... I send you the last 
news from Felix. The upshot of the whole will be 
that, at the nomination, the Tory Candidate will have 
a great majority : no Whig Candidate will start but 
Burgoyne, who will make himself and the cause 
ridiculous. I am expecting a county meeting in Berks 
on the state of the nation. I send you an address I 
have prepared for the occasion. I wish you would 
look at it, and revise and criticise it with a severe, not 
a friendly, eye, and let me have your opinion. . . . 

" Ever yours, 

" Folkestone." 

While Mr. Creevey was attending assiduously 
to his duties in Parliament, Mrs. Creevey sometiTnes 
remained at Brighton, and at such times Creevey's 

* Hon. James Abercromby, M.P-, afterwards Speaker, who went 
by the nickname of Young Cole, as Tierney did by that of Old Cole. 



i8io.] DIFFICULTIES OF THE OPPOSITION, 121 

letters assumed the character of an almost con- 
tinuous journal. 

^'Saturday, 20th Jan. — . . . Left Brighton with 
Grattan : dined at the Piazza : went at night to 
Brooks's : found Whitbread there in consequence of 
my letter : various others, all civil to the greatest 
degree. Morpeth, Lord R. Spencer, Fitzpatrick, 
Sefton, all greeted me most cordially, and then I had 
a long prose with Whitbread. 

" Lord Grey continues his insolence, but the others 
are all courting him prodigiously — Holland, the Duke 
of Bedford and Grenville, and with the latter he has 
unreserved conversations upon all subjects. The 
amendment is Grenville's drawing and Whitbread 
quite approves it. It is no great things, but it will 
do. . . . 

"21st — . . . Before I got to town, notes were out 
for a meeting at Ponsonby's to-morrow night. There 
was a note at my house for Ord, but none for me. 
Ossulston told me this morning that Lord Grey had 
asked him whether ' he thought Creevey would go to 
Ponsonby's if he was asked.' On Ossulston saying 
' Yes,' the other shook his head with an air of distrust. 
Ossulston wished me to go, but I said certainly not, 
upon such a case as that. From his house I went to 
Lord Grey's, and found him alone. He was civil, in 
good spirits, and looked remarkably well — talked 
generally of our running the Ministers hard : but not 
a word in detail of Ponsonby's meeting, or anything 
else, and so we parted. 

" I then went to Whitbread's, who, I found, would 
not go to Ponsonby's, considering himself to have 
been personally insulted by him ; but very wisely 
deciding that his case should not be made a reason 
for any one else absenting himself. ... He told me 
that Tierney had said to Ponsonby, in going over the 
persons to be asked and arriving at my name, that 
* Ponsonby must himself decide, for he knew as much 
as he [Tierney] did.' 

"On coming home to dress, I found a note 
from Abercromby, stating that he asked a minute's 
conversation with me at Brooks's at night ; which was, 



122 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

that he had been requested to learn from me, with 
every friendty wish to consult my own feelings, 
whether, if I was written to by Ponsonby, I wd. 
come to his house, and that it was thought right to 
tell me this communication was not made at the 
suggestion of Mr. Tierney. I said if I had received a 
letter from Ponsonby I had no doubt I should have 
gone, and so it ended. Gentlemen got into corners 
to whisper 'that they had no doubt but Creevey 
would go to Ponsonby's,' and the Marquis of Lans- 
downe and I paraded for a quarter of an hour together, 
and he was much more affable than he has been for 
ages. . . . Lord Grey began to be very gracious, and 
begged me finally to write to Maxwell and Sir Charles 
Pole to bring them from Brighton. On my telling 
him Pole was not likely to be well enough to come, 
he said : — ' Damn him ! I don't believe he would vote 
with me if he came. The Doctor (Sidmouth) can't 
make up his mind.' 

" 22nd. — A note in George Ponsonby's own writing, 
and sent by his servant, to request me to come to his 
house to-night ; and so I shall go. . . . Went to 
Ponsonby's : Milton, Lord A. Hamilton, Ossulston, 
iR-omilly, Ferguson, Coke of Norfolk, &c., there . . . 
so I am glad I went. Much pampered — pointed by 
Lord George Cavendish. 

" 2'i^rd. — Parliament met. The King's speech very 
long, and capable of being worked to the devil. . . . 
Lord Barnard moved the address. Peel seconded it, 
and made a capital figure for a first speech.* I think it 
was a prepared speech, but it was a most produceable 
Pittish performance, both in matter and manner. I 
perceive we shall by no means cut the figure to-night 
that Tierney has held out. . . . Castlereagh started 
from under the gallery, two rows behind Canning, 
and everything that related personally to himself he 
did with a conscious sense of being right, and a degree 
of lively animation I never saw in him before. Base 
as the House is, it recognised by its cheers the claims 
of Castlereagh to its approbation, and they gave it. 

* The Speaker, Charles Abbot [afterwards Lord Colchester], pro- 
nounced it to be " the best first speech since that of Mr. Pitt." Peel 
was only two and twenty. 



i8io.] DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS. 123 

When he came to his expedition, he fell a hundred 
fathoms lower than the bogs of Walcheren. 

" Canning was sufficiently master of himself to let 
off one of his regular compositions, with all the 
rhetorical flourishes that used to set his audience in a 
roar ; but he spoke from a different atmosphere. He 
was at least two feet separated from the Treasury 
bench, and in the whole course of his speech he could 
not extort a single cheer. . . . Whitbread was stout 
and strong — upon Wellington particularly. . . . Not- 
withstanding Tierney's calculations and prophecy that 
we should be in a majority, we were beat by 96. . . . 
Their strength was composed of five parties — the 
Government — Castlereagh's — Canning's — the Doctor's 
and the Saints. In looking at the majority going out, 
Castlereagh said with the gayest face possible: — 
' Well, Creevey, how do we look ? ' ... 

" We had a grand fuss in telling the House, The 
Princess of Wales, who had been present the whole 
time, would stay it out to know the numbers, and so 
remained in her place in the gallery. The Speaker 
very significantly called several times for strangers to 
withdraw ; which she defied, and sat on. At last the 
little fellow became irritated — started from his chair, 
and, looking up plump in the faces of her and her 
female friend, halloaed out most fiercely: — 'If there 
are any strangers in the House they must withdraw.' 
They being the only two, they struck and withdrew. . . . 
In the Lords, Grey made an admirable speech, dis- 
puted the military, moral and intellectual fame of 
Lord Wellington most capitally, and called loudly 
upon the Marquis [Wellesley], as the Atlas of the 
falling state, to come forward and justify the victory 
ofTalavera. 

" 24.th. — Dined at a coffee-house : went to Brooks's 
at night. Lord Grey came in drunk from the Duke of 
York's where he had been dining. He came and sat 
by me on the same sofa, talked as well as he could 
over the division of the night before, and damned with 
all his might and main Marquis Wellesley, of whose 
profligate establishment I told him some anecdotes, 
which he swallowed as greedily as he had done the 
Duke's wine. He and Whitbread and I sat together 
and were as merry as if we had been the best friends 



124 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

in the world. . . . Then the Right Hon. George 
Ponsonby came and sat by me, and we talked over 
the last session a little ; but I found him very sore 
and very bad. 

^^ 2$th. — Perceval has given notice of thanks to 
Wellington on Monday. . . . 

" 26th. — . . . On Lord Porchester's motion for an 
enquiry into the expedition to Walcheren, we beat the 
Ministers by a majority of nine. I did not expect it ; 
tho' I saw that, if we could move together, our first 
division (of 167) on the Address must be fatal to them. 
It is the most perfect triumph possible for the enquiry 
is to be public, like that on the Duke of York, not in a 
Select Committee. There were circumstances in the 
division above all price. Canning was in the minority 
with Perceval — Castlereagh in the majority with us. 
He sat aloof with 4 friends ; and these 5, instead of 
going out, decided the question in our favor. Had 
they gone out we should have been beat by one ! I 
counted the villains going out, and in coming up the 
House I pronounced with confidence that they were 
beat. Castlereagh bent his head from his elevated 
bench down almost to the floor to catch my eye, and 
I gave him a sign that all was well. He could scarce 
contain himself : he hid his face ; but when the division 
was over, he was quite extravagant in the expression 
of his happiness. . . . 

" 2'jth. — Walked in the streets ; they were all alive 
and merry. Tierney says ' the business of last night 
will end in smoak,' which confirms me in my con- 
viction of its infinite importance. ... I do not think 
any minister that ever was could stand 2i public enqmxy 
into our ordinary expeditions ; much less such a 
minister as this into such an expedition. . . . Walked 
with Bainbridge. He told me that, after our conver- 
sation two months ago, in which we agreed entirely 
about the fatal influence of Tierney over Grey, and 
the necessity of these leaders having their eyes opened 
as to their conduct to the Insurgents,* and the utter 
ruin such a system would bring upon them, he was so 
impressed with the matter that he went down to Lord 

* The extreme wing of the Opposition, who afterwards assumecl 
the ominous title of " the Mountain." 



iSio.] DIVIDED COUNSELS. 12$ 

Thanet to have it out with him; who agreed with him 
in everything, and he (Lord Thanet) was induced to 
write an elaborate letter to Grey, expostulating with 
him upon all their various proceedings. 

"28/^, Sunday. — Dined at Western's. I have got 
so much master of the Talavera campaign, that I 
meant to have had a round upon it ; but I find Whit- 
bread is so well primed upon the subject, and so 
many others in the same way, that I shall desist. 
Supped with Lord Thanet at Brooks's, from mere 
curiosity, having heard so much of his talents. He 
is certainly a quick, clever man, but his earldom has 
done great things for his fame in the intellectual 
line. . . . 

" Lord John Townshend attacked George Ponsonby 
with the most honest indignation on notes having been 
sent out to say there wd. be no division to-morrow 
on the thanks to Wellington, after notes had previously 
gone round to say there would be. . . . The Right 
Hon. George could only say, over and over again — 
* I don't agree with you, my lord ' — ' My lord, I by no 
means agree with you.' 

'' 2gth. — All confusion to-day, owing to this change 
about dividing on the thanks to Wellington. Rank 
mutiny has broken out, and it is now said we are 
certainly to divide. Milton, Folkestone, Lord J. 
Townshend, George Ponsonby, junr. — in short, all 
the Insurgents. This is all because our leaders, 
having once been in a majority, cannot bear ever to 
be in a minority again. A damned, canting fellow in 
the House, Mr. Manning, complained of members' 
names being printed * as a breach of privilege, and so 
it wd. have passed off, if I had not shewed them that, 
so far from its being a breach of privilege, it was a 
vote in King William's time 'that members' names 
should be printed, that the country might know who 
did, and who did not, their duty.' . . . Wellington's 
thanks are put off till Thursday. . . . Lord Huntly 
ordered to attend at the Bar of the House as a witness 
on the enquiry into the Scheldt expedition. So now 
the Ministers are nail'd. 

"30^/f. — Went at Milton's desire to help him to 

* I.e. in the division lists published in the newspapers. 



126 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

draw up an amendment to Wellington's thanks. I 
shall like to hand Sir Arthur and his battle down to 
posterity in the Journals in its proper colours. I 
have quite pleased Milton with my amendment; but 
was sorry when I left him to find that he meant to 
take it to Ponsonby for his approbation." 

Creevey here quotes his draft amendment, which 
is very long. 

"Surely this hits him hard enough, and yet it is 
mild as milk; but the great merit of it is that it is 
quoting his own dispatches in his own words. 

" Met Grey and Tierney in the streets. They both 
stopt, and I begun about the thanks to Wellington. 
Grey immediately said he never could see the sense 
of there being 7to division in the House of Commons 
on that subject ; that he himself would have divided 
the Lords if he could have found anybody to divide 
with him, and, as it was, he had protested against it. 
Tierney blamed the folly of the note which said there 
was to be no division, and let out that Lord Temple 
was to divide /or Wellesley if there was a division; 
and here is the whole mystery about keeping off a 
division. But we^.^are to divide: and the leaders 
with us. r,; ,>,, •>'' 

'^315^'.— . . . Perceval fought three pitched battles 
on naming the Finance Committee, and was beat in 
them all. In that between Leycester and Wm. 
Cavendish, about which I was most anxious, I saw 
the tellers count wrong by 3. I called to have the 
House told again, and again I saw them make the 
same mistake. 1 shewed it to General Tarleton, who 
became furious ; and the Speaker called him and me 
to order in the most boisterous manner. It ended 
in the House being counted a third time, and the 
tellers were sent out into the galleries to be more 
certain. In going they picked up young Peel, the 
seconder of the Address, in concealment, who, being 
brought in, voted for Cavendish. They then counted 
the House again, and they counted right, making 3 
more than before, and with Peel making the majority 
of 4. Otherwise we had been equal, and the Speaker 



i8io.] THE WALCHEREN ENQUIRY. 127 

would have decided the thing undoubtedly against us. 
We then stuffed Sir John Newport and Sir George 
Warrender down their throats, without their daring 
to oppose us. There never was a more compleat 
victory, and the majority of the Committee is now so 
good, anything may be done with it. So much so, 
that Freemantle said after all was over to Mr. Caven- 
dish, that * if Lords Grenville and Grey come in, this 
Committee will be a terrible thing for them ! ' 

''February 1st. — All our indignation against Welling- 
ton ended in smoak. Opposition to his thanks was 
so unpopular, that some of the stoutest of our crew 
slunk away; or rather, they were dispersed by the 
indefatigable intrigues of the Wellesleys and the 
tricks of Tierney. ... In short he and our more 
ostensible leaders cut the ground from under our feet 
in deference to Lord Grenville. My consolation is 
that they will be dragged thro' plenty of dirt by this 
same great man and his friends the Wellesleys. It 
is already given out by the Grenvilles that the present 
Finance Committee, composed as it is, would overturn 
any Government. It certainly will produce most 
unpleasant matter for placemen and pensioners." 

On 2nd February began the mquiry in Committee 
of the whole House into the Walcheren expedition. 
Witnesses gave evidence at the Bar of the House. 
On the motion of Mr. Yorke, the galleries of the 
House were cleared of strangers, in order to prevent 
incorrect reports of the proceedings being published 
in anticipation of the publication of the official 
minutes. During the course of the inquiry a long 
and detailed description was forwarded daily to Mrs. 
Creevey by her husband ; but as the character of this 
famous inquiry is fully on record, it does not seem 
desirable to quote more than a few sentences here 
and there. 

"8/A. — . . . A message from the King to the 
House of Commons for ;!(^20qo per ann. for Lord 



128 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

Wellington. This is too bad! The question is to 
come up to-morrow week. . . . 

"9^/i. — . . . Went with Lord Archibald Hamilton 
to the Westminster meeting in Palace Yard. There 
were 5000 or 6000 persons present, apparently of the 
lowest extraction. Cochrane and Burdett spoke with 
great applause, and Burdett has since presented to 
the House the petition of the meeting for a reform of 
Parliament — the same petition that was presented by 
Lord Grey in 1798, and beginning — 'Whereas by a 
petition presented in 1798 by Charles Grey Esq., now 
Earl Grey.' This is comical enough, and we shall see 
how he takes it. 

'^ Feb. 17 th. — Call'd on Whitbread, Lord Derby, 
Mrs. Grey and Lord Downshire. Walked with 
Abercromby, who had had a letter from his brother, 
who is with Wellington's army. It is dated the 31st 
January, and they had just heard that a corps of 
45,000 French were at Salamanca. If this be true, 
Wellington has very little time to effect his escape 
from these two armies that are approaching him in 
different directions. His career approaches very 
rapidly to a conclusion ; but what is one to think, at 
such a period, of the King's message yesterday to 
Parliament to propose our taking 30,000 Portuguese 
into our pay ? * . . . 

" Dined at George Ponsonby's with Lord Temple, 
Lord Porchester, Charles Wynne, Bowes-Daly, Byng, 
Calcraft, Abercromby, Petty, Brougham, Maxwell 
and some others. Went to the opera with Mr. and 
Mrs. Ord who had dined at Lord Ponsonby's, where 
a political conversation had taken place. , . . Lord 
Ponsonby expressed himself quite delighted with the 
present conduct of every part of the Opposition — that 
Whitbread was everything that was conciliatory, and 
that he (Lord Ponsonby) would vote for reform in 
Parliament (tho' he did not approve of it), or any- 
thing else, to keep the party together. . . . He seems 

* With this result, that, in July, 18 13, Wellington was able to 
write to Lord Liverpool : " The Portuguese are now i\iQ fighting cocks 
of the army. I believe we owe their merits more to the care we have 
taken of their pockets and their bellies, than to the instruction we 
have given them " [_Despatches, x, 569]. 



j8io.] WELLINGTON AND THE COMMON COUNCIL. 129 

wanting to get back to his old place and not knowing 
how. 

" \(^th. — . . . Went into the House of Lords, and 
up comes my Lord Grey with a tender squeeze of 
my hand, to tell me with the utmost animation an 
excellent story of Wellesley. He has written to 
Lord Grenville to tell him he is sick, and begging 
him not to agitate the question of taking the 30,000 
Portuguese troops into our pay to-day in his absence. 
In addition to this (conceiving himself unworthy of 
credit, I suppose) he encloses an opinion or certifi- 
cate of his physician — four sides of paper upon the 
nature of his constitution ! The physician's name is 
Dr. Knighton, accoucheur (as Grey says) to Poll 
Raffle, Wellesley's Cyprian. 

"My Lord Grey came to me again to tell me of 
'a damned job' by Bishop Mansel's brother. . . . 
When I saw him cast his canvassing eyes about him 
to bow to every member of the Commons he barely 
knew, and then thought of what I had seen of his 
pride and tyranny at Howick a few months ago, I 
knew not whether one ought to laugh or cry at such 
folly in a person who might be so powerful if he was 
right." 

The next few days supply commentary chiefly 
upon the course of the inquiry into the conduct of 
Lord Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan in the ill- 
fated Walcheren expedition. Mr. Creevey says that 
universal indignation was concentrated upon Lord 
Chatham, who tried to throw the blame upon Sir 
Richard and the Admiralty. 

"21s/. — Called on Waithman* with some anxiety 
that he was going to fail on Friday on the question 
in the Common Council about Wellington's pension, 
but he seems confident they shall not. He at once 
embraced my idea of what ought to be done, and of 

* Robert Waithman [i 764-1 833], an active reformer, whose career 
is commemorated in the name of a street near Blackfriars Bridge, and 
by one of the two obelisks in Ludgate Circus, 

K 



130 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

his own accord requested me to draw a petition for 
them to the House of Commons, of which I think I 
can make a very good case for them, and a damned 
pinching one for Wellington. . . . Dined at Sam 
Heywood's, with Lords Grey, Lauderdale and Derby, 
Romilly, &c. . . . Lord Derby told us that Sir Henry 
Halford had told him yesterday that he had been 
detained the Lord knows how long with Lord Chat- 
ham, making him up by draughts and nervous 
medicines for his examination last night, and after all 
he sent word he was ill, and could not come. . . . 

^^ 22nd. — Took the petition I had drawn to Waith- 
man, but he has drawn a good one himself, so I don't 
know that he will use mine. . . . The Opposition 
in the House of Lords cut a great figure last night, 
independent of their powerful number. ... I heard 
Wellesley open his plan of taking the 30,000 Portu- 
guese into our pay, and the most sanguine expecta- 
tions I have ever formed respecting him were more 
than realised. His speech (tho' he had shammed ill 
for the purpose of preparing it) was an absolute and 
unqualified failure. . . . Lord Grenville's answer to 
him was one of the most powerful speeches I have 
ever heard : he shook his former friend to atoms. . . . 
Lord Lansdowne, I hear, made an admirable speech, 
not the less valuable for containing a very severe 
censure on the low and dirty Sidmouth who took 
part against them. . . . 

" 2'^rd. — Went to Lauderdale's at his request to 
look at some motions he is going to make about 
India, and spent a most agreeable hour with him. 
There is the devil to pay with the India Company, 
and the Government have given up for the present 
bringing forward the renewal of their charter. I 
went to Lord Hutchinson afterwards. He thinks 
Wellington ought to be hanged. He says that in 
his last dispatch but one he writes word that he has 
25,000 British troops — that he is expecting 5000 more 
— that he has 25,000 Portuguese troops almost as 
good as British — that the French are in the greatest 
difficulties in the Sierra Morena, and that Portugal is 
in perfect safety. In his last dispatch he has written 
under the greatest possible fright, and has pressed 
the Government for positive instructions whether he 



i8io.] DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT. 131 

is to come away or stay. Lord Hutchinson thinks 
orders are gone for him to evacuate Portugal." 

How slender were the grounds for Lord Hutchin- 
son's version of Wellington's despatches may be seen 
by perusing those here referred to, viz. Wellington's 
letters to Lord Liverpool of 31st January and 9th 
February, 18 10.* The possibility, even the pro- 
bability, of evacuation is calmly discussed, with an 
assurance that, should he be forced to it, he could 
bring the army away in safety. But how little 
Wellington had lost faith in his power to hold his 
ground is shown by the fact that, at this very time, 
the lines of Torres Vedras were being secretly, but 
swiftly, fortified. 

"Mr. Whitbread's motion [for papers relating to 
the Walcheren expedition] was carried by 178 against 
171. I never expected to be in a majority upon such 
a question, nor did the House of Commons know 
what they were doing when they voted as they did. 
The vote is the severest possible censure upon the 
whole transaction — upon Lord Chatham, upon the 
King and upon Ministers. It is making all these 
different parties do justice to an unsupported indi- 
vidual (Sir Richard Strachan) whether the King will 
or no. It is a direct vote against royal favoritism, 
and in favor of justice and fair play. There has been 
nothing like it in the present reign. The truth is that 
people did not consider the blow it gave to the King, 
but they voted as against the rascality of Chatham and 
in favor of Strachan. . . . 

"Waithman carried his motion in the Common 
Council for a petition to the House of Commons 
against the Wellington Pension Bill. This was one 
of the best hits I ever made — to get this history of 
Wellington thus handed down to posterity on the 
Journals of Parliament, at the suit of the first and 

* Wellington's Despatches, vol. v. pp. 464, 480, 



132 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

greatest Corporation of the capital itself of England. 
Whether it is my petition, or Waithman's, or a 
mixture, 1 am indifferent : either will do the business. 
The obligation of the Wellesley family to me is this 
— that, but for me, my Lord Wellington would only 
have been the object of a resolution of the Common 
Council ; whereas they have now kindly introduced 
him with their strictures upon his character to parlia- 
mentary notice and history. . . . 

" 24//J. — . . . The vote of last night produces the 
greatest sensation in the town to-day; and I must 
confess we have used our victory with no great 
moderation. St. James Street and Pall Mall have 
been paraded by the Opposition for three or four 
hours in numerous divisions, all overflowing with 
jokes, as well at the expense of the Ministers as of 
the Gentleman at the end of the Mall, and of the satis- 
laction he will derive from the address when Perceval 
carries it to him at Windsor. 

"Another event of great importance has taken 
place this morning. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, 
has been tried in the King's Bench for a libel con- 
tained in his paper some time past upon the King 
and his reign. Perry defended himself against a very 
vindictive speech of Gibbs's, and the jury declared 
him Not Guilty in less than 2 minutes. So the Press 
is safe : at least as yet." 

Sir Francis Burdett having published in Cobbett's 
Political Register a letter to his constituents declaring 
the imprisonment of a Radical orator by order of the 
House of Commons to be illegal, the Speaker's 
warrant was issued for his arrest. He stood a siege 
of two days in his own house, being supported by 
the populace, whose idol he was for the moment. 
One life was lost in the mellay ; finally, an entrance 
was effected, and Burdett was imprisoned in the 
Tower, obtaining his release on the prorogation of 
Parliament. The following invitation was issued 
from his prison : — 



i8io.] A SAILOR'S OPINION OF STRACHAN. 1 33 

Sir Francis Burdett to Mr. Creevey. 

"Tower, May lo, 1810. 

"Dear Crevey, 

" Pray look into this case — a job of the 
Church. When will [you] come again to dinner? 
You shall have two bottles of claret next time, and as 
good fish. 

" Yours, 

"F. Burdett. 
" I hope Mrs. Crevey is well." 



Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Deal, March 9th, 1810. 

"... I wish I had time or you had leisure to learn 
from me, if you do not know, what kind of fellow 
Strachan is. In two words, it is scarcely possible to 
have more zeal, ardour and spirit on service than he 
has. He slaved like a Dray Horse during the whole 
of the offensive operations on the Scheldt, but he 
never troubled his head about documents, being 
always more ready to blame himself than to prepare 
to meet accusation. He never approved of the plan, 
but determined to exert all his faculties for its success. 
We have not a more gallant fellow, nor a more active, 
complete seaman, in our service. He is continually 
getting into scrapes, owing to his vivacity and open- 
ness, and very apt to be influenced by designing 
people. . . . Lord C[hatham] has treated him in the 
most shabby way, and imposed on his good nature, of 
which he has a large share. ..." 

William Cobbett was at this time undergoing his 
sentence of ;^iooo fine and two years' imprisonment 
for his article in the Weekly Register of ist July, 1809, 
denouncing the flogging of some mutinous militiamen 
at Ely, who were sentenced to receive 500 lashes 
each. At the present day the punishment of the 
journalist seems as outrageous as that against which 



134 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VI. 

he inveighed, but a century has wrought some 
curious changes in our sentiments. 

Wm. Cobbett to Mr. Creevey. 

" Newgate, 24th Sept., 1810. 

". . . You will easily guess that I have little time 
to spare ; but the fact is, that I seldom do anything 
after two o'clock, when I dine. The best way, how- 
ever, is to favour me with your company at dinner at 
tzvo, and then the day may be of your appointing, I 
being always at home, you know, and every day being 
a day of equal favour. ... I give beef stakes and 
porter. I may vary my food to mutton chops, but 
never vary the drink. I think it is a duty to God 
and Man to put the Nabobs upon the coals without 
delay. They have long been cooking and devouring 
the wretched people both of England and India." 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Brougham, Penrith, Sunday [18 12]. 

"... As for Portugal, with all our good luck, we 
are now clearly paying millions for a few periods in 
the H. of C, — that Canning, &c., may twit one man 
and praise t'other, and tell us how * every French- 
man that falls is in itself a gain,' &c., &c. It would 
be a dear bargain if Pitt were the speaker ; but such 
driv'ling as we pay for is past all bearing. 

"I don't know Cobbet, or I would send him a 
good motto from Dr. Johnson about special juries 
and imprisonment. The lines are very pat in them- 
selves as a quotation, but coming from Johnson they 
are still better ; and they clearly contain his opinion, 
at least on special juries, for they occur in his ' London,' 
imitated from the 3rd Satire of Juvenal, and the 
original passage has nothing parallel. 

" ' A single jail in Alfred's golden reign 

Could half the Nation's criminals contain ; 
Fair Justice then, without constraint adored, 
Held high the steady scale, but sheath'd the sword ; 
No spies were paid — no special juries known — 
Blest Age ! but ah, how difPrent from our own ! ' " 



( 135 ) 



CHAPTER VII. 

1811. 

The death of his youngest and favourite child, 
Princess Amelia, in the autumn of 1810 upset the poor 
old King's intellect for the last time. He settled into 
hopeless insanity, and the chief business before 
Parliament in 181 1 was a Bill constituting the Prince 
of Wales Regent. Great was the stir among the 
Whigs, who began fitting each other into the great 
and little offices of the new Government ; for who 
could doubt that the great turn of events, so long 
and ardently anticipated, was indeed at hand, and 
that the Prince, as head of the Whig party, would 
send his father's servants to the right about, and 
form a Ministry of his own friends. Judging from 
Creevey's correspondence, neither he nor any of 
his friends entertained the slightest suspicion about 
the sincerity of the Prince's devotion to Liberal 
principles, nor understood how much his politics 
consisted of opposition to the Court party. It 
was, therefore, with as much surprise as dismay 
that Creevey beheld the change in the Prince's 
attitude towards Ministers as soon as he assumed 
the Regency. 



136 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

Lord Erskine to Mr. Creevey. 

"Reigate, Jany. 10, 181 r. 

"Dear Creevey, 

"I send you the Act which you thought 
never could have passed. . . . Lord Eldon told me he 
never had heard of it and expressed his astonishment. 
He said that those gentlemen who had served the 
King as foreign ministers at a period when the King 
had a power by law to remunerate their services by a 
pension, if he chose to grant it, had as good a right 
to it as he — the C[hancellor] — had to his estate ; and 
of that there can be no doubt. 

" I observe Bankes has given notice to revive his 
Committee [on Public Expenditure]. I have seen 
him, and he seems to justify his resolution; but surely 
Martin and you, as lawyers, will not mix yourselves 
as the author of the first ex post facto law, touching 
the rights of subjects, that has ever passed. ... 1 
really think that some step should be taken by those 
who, as the friends of reform, ought to take care that 
it does not become odious. 

" Bankes says the act is Perceval's, but I have good 
authority for believing that Perceval would not 
justify the ex post facto clause. 

" Yours very sincerely, 

" Erskine." 

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey [at Brightoit]. 

"Great George St., 19th January, 181 1. 

" (For God's sake be secret about this letter.) 

" My hopes of seeing you to-morrow are at an end, 
owing to a most ridiculous resolution of our party to 
have another division on Monday, in which of course 
we shall disclose still greater weakness than in our 
last division. I had actually paired off with John 
Villiers for the week, but I am sure you will think I 
am right in staying over Monday, when I tell you that 
McMahon told me he was sure the Prince would be 
hurt if I was not there, and when you read the enclosed 



i8ii.] CABINET MAKING. 137 > 

note from Sheridan. Nevertheless I give the Prince 
credit for not originating this business, but that it 
has been conveyed to him by Tierney or some such 
artist. I mean to be dow^n to play a week or ten 
days on Tuesday. Wm. and C. had a very comfort- 
able dinner again yesterday upon my mutton chops 
at this house, and then went to the House, and just 
as we had returned home again at ten o'clock, and 1 
was beginning to dress myself to go to Mrs. Taylor's, 
Whitbread came and desired to have some conversa- 
tion with me. . . . Sam's visit was to take my advice. 
He said things had now come to such a state of 
maturity that it was necessary for him to decide (but 
here he has just been again, and I am afraid I shall 
not have time to tell). 

"Well — office was offered him; anything he pleased, 
but had he any objection to holding it under Grenville 
as First Lord, if he [Grenville] held as before the two 
offices of First Lord and Auditor, with the salaries of both ? 
I know not with what disposition he came to me; he 
stated both sides of the question, but said his decision 
must be quick. I had a difficult responsibility to take 
upon myself, but I set before him as strongly as I 
could the unpopularity of the Grenvilles — the certainty 
of this [illegible'] place being again and again exposed 
— the impossibility of his defending it after having 
himself driven Yorke from receiving the income of 
his tellership whilst he is at the Admiralty, and Per- 
ceval from receiving the income of Chancellor of the 
Exchequer whilst he is First Lord and Chancellor 
of the Dutchy — that his consistency and character 
were everything to him, and that, if I was him, I 
would compell Lord Grenville to make the sacrifice to 
publick opinion, and have nothing to do with the 
Government. 

" I went to him this morning, and he had done as 
I advised him. He had told Grey his determination 
and he has just been here to shew me his letter to him 
upon the subject — to be shewn Lord Grenville. It is 
perfect in every respect, and will, whenever it is 
known, do him immortal honor. The fact, however, 
is, my lord will strike. They one and all stick to 
Whitbread; they can't carry on the Government 



138 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

without him. There is no anger — no ill will in any 
of them ; all piano — all upon their knees. Is not this 
a triumph?" 

[Enclosure in above, from Mr. Sheridan. 

" Friday night, Jany. 18th. 
"My dear Creevey, 

"It is determined in consequence of the 
earnest Desire of high authority to have a last debate 
and division on the Regency bill on Monday next. 
Here is a Conclave mustering all Hands, and I am 
requested to write to you as it is apprehended you 
mean to leave Town to-morrow. I conjure you at any 
rate to be with us on Monday. 

" Yours ever faithfully, 

"Bly. Sheridan."] 

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey. 

"Great George St., Saty., Feby. 2nd, i8ii. 
" I came home at half-past four that I might have 
time to write to you, and ;Whishaw came instantly 
after and has staid with me till five. ... I went to 
dine at Hutchinson's and after all he never came. He 
was kept at Carlton House till twelve at night, so 
Lord Donoughmore and I dined together, and he was, 
as he always is, very pleasant. At Brooks's I found 
Sheridan just arrived from Carlton House, where the 
conclave has just broken up, and the Prince had decided 
against the pressing advice of all present not to dis- 
miss the Government. Sheridan was just sober, and 
expressed to me the strongest opinion of the injurious 
tendency of this resolution to the Prince's character. 
Lord Hutchinson said the same thing to me to-day, 
and added that never man had behaved better than 
Sheridan. I said all I thought to both Hutchinson and 
Sheridan in vindication of Prinny, but I presume I 
am wrong, as I stand single in this opinion. I went, 
however, to Mrs. Fitzherbert at twelve to-day, an 
appointment I made with her yesterday in the street, 
and she and I were agreed upon this subject. The 
Prince has written to Perceval a letter which is to be 
sent to-morrow, stating to him his intention, under 



i8ii.] WHITBREAD'S PROPOSALS. 139 

the present opinion of the physicians respecting his 
father, not to change the Government at present, and 
at the same time expressing the regret he feels at being 
thus compelled to continue a Government not possess- 
ing his confidence, and his' determination of changing 
it should there be no speedy prospect of his Majesty's 
recovery after a certain time. 

" Now I do not see, under all the monstrous diffi- 
culties of his situation, anysgreat impropriety of his 
present resolution, particularly as he means to have 
his letter made publick. 

" Mrs. Fitz is evidently delighted at the length and 
forgiving and confidential nature of Prinny's visits. 
She goes to-morrovv^ and will tell you, no doubt, how 
poor Prinny was foolish enough to listen to some idle 
story of my having abused his letter to both Houses, 
and how she defended me. Poor fellow, one should 
have thought he had more important concerns to 
think of. I went from her to Whitbread, and he again 
conjured me to attach myself to the new Government 
by taking some situation, and went over many — the 
Admiralty Board again — Chairman of the Ways and 
Means, &c. I was very guarded, and held myself very 
much up, and said I would take nothing for which 
there was not service to be done — nothing like a 
sinecure, which I considered a seat at the Admiralty 
Board to be ; but of course I was very good-humoured. 
He repeated the conversation between him and Lord 
Grey about me. He said my name was first mentioned 
by Miss Whitbread, and, having been so. Lord Grey 
replied — ' Although I think Creevey has acted unjustly 
to me, and tho' in the session before last he gave great 
ofi'ence to many of my friends by something like a 
violation of confidence, yet on his own account, on that 
of Mrs. Creevey and of anybody connected with them, 
I had always intended, without you mentioning him, 
to express my wishes that he might be included in the 
Government' Upon which Whitbread stated from his 
own recollection of my speech that gave offence, his 
perfect conviction of its being no breach of confidence; 
and so the thing ended with their united sentiment in 
favor of my having some office. 

" I am affraid you will be hurt at not seeing any 
immediate provision for me in this new Government, 



140 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

should it take place; but I beg you to give way to 
no such sentiment. . . . They are upon a new tack 
in consulting publick opinion. Lord Grey and Lord 
Grenville have most unequivocally refused to accede 
to a proposal of the Prince of Wales, and which was 
stated to be nearest to his heart, viz. to reinstate the 
Duke of York as Commander-in-chief What think 
you of this in Grey ? and his language to Whitbread 
is they must no longer be taunted with ' unredeemed 
pledges.' I mention these things to shew you they 
are on their good behaviour, and that, with such views, 
they must do what they ought by me. I am perfectly 
satisfied with the state of things— this is, supposing a 
Government to be formed — and perfectly secure of 
any wishes of mine being accomplished." 

"21st Jan., 181 1. 

" I am very much gratified to find you ai)prove my 
counsel to Sam, and Sam for acting upon it. Every 
succeeding moment convinces me of the necessity there 
was for acting so, and of the infinite advantage and 
superiority it will give him over all his colleagues at 
starting. 

" What shall you say to me when I tell you I am 
not to vote to-night after all ? Villiers won't release 
me from contract of pairing off; at least he consented 
only to stay upon terms that I could not listen to, such 
as — if my being in the division might be of any use to me 
in the new arrangement, that then he would certainly 
stay. This, as you may suppose, was enough to make 
me at once decline any further discussion. . . . How- 
ever, it is universally known how I am situated, and 
McMahon told me just now of his own accord that the 
Prince had told him this morning ' that Villiers would 
not release Creevey from pairing off with him ; that 
it was very good of Creevey to stay after this, and to 
show himself in the House, as he knew he intended.' 
. . . Here has been Ward * just now to beg I would 
come and dine with him tete-a-tete, and that I should 
have my dinner at six precisely, as he knew 1 liked 
that : so I shall go. I know he was told the character 
I pronounced of him one night at Mrs. Taylor's after 

* Hon. John William Ward, created Earl Dudley in 1827. 



i8ii.] THE PROSPECT OF OFFICE. 141 

he was gone, upon which occasion I neither concealed 
his merits nor his frailties, and he has been kinder to 
me than ever from that time. ... I don't know a 
syllable of what has transpired to-day between Prinny 
and the grandees, but I must not omit to tell you that 
the night before last my Lord Lansdowne* for the 
first time condescended to come up to me at Brooks's, 
and to walk me backwards and forwards for at least 
a quarter of an hour. He asked me how I thought 
we should get on in the House of Commons (meaning 
the new Government), whether we should be strong 
enough ; to which I replied it would depend upon the 
conduct of the Government — that if they acted right 
they would be strong enough, and that so doing was 
not only the best, but the sole, foundation of their 
strength, and my lord agreed with me in rather an 
awkward manner, and was mighty civil and laughed at 
all my jokes, and so we parted." 

"Great George St., ist Feby., 181 1. 

" I was very much provoked at being detained so 
long on the road yesterday that I was just too late for 
the last Bill, so I eat my mutton chops and drunk a bottle 
of wine, and then tea, and then sallied forth to Mrs. 
Taylor's ; but alas, she was dining out, so on I went to 
Brooks's, where I found Mr. Ponsonby and others ; and 
then came Whitbread, Sheridan, and Lord Hutchinson, 
the latter of whom insisted upon my coming to dine with 
him tete-a-tete to-day, as he had so much to say to me. 
He had been dining yesterday with the Prince, and 
was to be with him again this morning. You may 
suppose I intend accepting his invitation ; for to-day 
Whitbread was deeply involved in private conversa- 
tion with these gentry ; but, before he left the room, 
he came up to the table where I was, and said — 
* Creevey, call upon me to-morrow at twelve if it is 
not inconvenient to you ; ' and, having left the room, 
Ward, who was there, said — 'There! Mr. Under- 
Secretary, you are to be tried as to what kind of a 
hand you write, &c., &c., before you are hired;' and 
then we walked home together, and he told me he had 

* Formerly Lord Henry Petty. 



142 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

been offered to be a Paymaster of the Forces, and that 
he had refused it, and that he was sure this notice of 
Whitbread was to offer me an under-secretaryship in 
his office. I went accordingly to Sam this morning, 
but quite armed, I am certain, against all disappoint- 
ment, and with all the air of an independent man. He 
began by giving me his opinion that the Prince would 
not change the Government, and that he was playing 
a false, hollow, shabby game. He said the Queen had 
written him a letter evidently dictated by Perceval, 
[illegible] most cursedly, and that he had been quite 
taken in by it. He expressed himself strongly of 
opinion that he [the Prince] ought instantly to change 
the Government ; that after all that had passed between 
him, the Prince and Lords Grenville and Grey, it would 
be a breach of honour not to overthrow the ministers 
instantly. I confess I was more penetrated, upon this 
part of the conversation, with Sam's anxiety to be in 
office than I was with the weight of his arguments 
against the Prince. At the same time, it is due to him 
to add that Sheridan and Lord Hutchinson insist 
openly that the Prince, in justice to his character, is 
bound to make this change ; and again, there certainly 
is nothing to make the Prince expect any rapid amend- 
ment of the King. . . . Well, this opinion of Whitbread 
being advanced and maintained by him as aforesaid, 
he proceeded to say that, in the event of the change 
taking place, he was very anxious to know from myself 
what I should look to — that he and Lord Grey had 
talked over the subject together — that the latter had 
spoken of me very handsomely, and said that, tho' I 
had in the session before last, fired into the old Govern- 
ment in a manner that had given great offence to 
several persons, yet that he was very desirous I 
should form part of the new Government. Whitbread 
added his own opinion that it was of great importance 
1 should be in the Government, and then added — * The 
worst of it is there are so few places suited to you 
that are consistent with a seat in Parliament; but 
what is there you should think of yourself?' So I 
replied that was rather a hard question to answer; 
that though I was a little man compared to him in the 
country, yet that the preservation of my own character 
and consistency was the first object with me; that I 



i8u.] CREEVEY'S CONDITIONS. 143 

could go as a principal into no office — that was out of 
the question — and I would not go into any office as a 
subaltern, where the character of the principal did not 
furnish a sufficient apology for my serving under him ; 
that with these views I certainly had looked to going 
with him into any office he might have allotted to him. 
He said such had always been his wish, and then said 
— 'You know by the Act of Parliament that created 
the third Secretary of State, viz., that for the Colonies, 
neither of the Under-Secretaries of State can sit in 
Parliament, and that was what I meant when I said 
there were so few places consistent with a seat in 
Parliament' He said Grey and he had taken for 
granted I would not go back to my old place, or a 
seat at that board, after firing as I had done into the 
East I. Company ; to which 1 replied they were quite 
right, and I added that, whenever I might be in office 
or out, I reserved to myself the right of the free exercise 
of my opinion upon all Indian subjects. He then said, 
with some humility, would I take a seat at the Admiralty 
Board ; that Lord Holland would be there, and that he, 
of course, would have every disposition to consult my 
feelings. I said my first inclination was certainly 
against it ; at the same time, I begged nothing might 
be done to prevent Lord Holland making an offer of 
any kind to me ; that he was a person I looked up to 
greatly on his own account, as well as his uncle's ; * 
that in all my licentiousness in Parliament I had never 
profaned his uncle's memory ; it had been exclusively 
directed against his enemies ; that I would take a 
thing from Lord Holland that nothing should induce 
me to do from any Grenvilles ; at the same time, I 
was giving no opinion further than this, that I begged 
Whitbread not to prevent Lord Holland from making 
me an offer — let it be what it may. ..." 

How little real union there was among the various 
sections of the Opposition, and how greatly the Whigs 
dreaded the projects dearest to the Radicals, are well 
illustrated in the following letters. 

* C. J. Fox. 



144 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"April, 1811. 

"Dear C, 

" The enclosed answer to a mutinous epistle 
which I fired into Holland House t'other day may 
amuse Mrs. C. and you. Burn it when you have 
read it. 

" Yours ever, 

" H. B." 

{Enclosure from Lord Holland. 

' ". . . There is much truth in your complaints of 
the present state of public affairs. But how is the 
evil to be corrected ? There is a want of popular 
feelings in many individuals of the party. Others 
are exasperated with the unjust and uncandid treat- 
ment they have received, and are every day receiv- 
ing, from the modern Reformers. Another set are 
violent anti-Reformers, and alarmed at every speech 
or measure that has the least tendency towards 
reform. There is but one measure on which the 
party are unanimously agreed, and no one man in the 
House of Commons to whom they look up with that 
deference and respect to his opinion which is necessary 
to have concert and co-operation in a party. ... It is 
a state of things, however, which cannot possibly last. 
Before next meeting of Parliament, the Prince must 
either have changed his Ministers, or he must lay his 
account with systematic opposition to his government. 
Even though the old leaders of the party * should be 
unwilling to break with him, they will not be able to 
prevent their friends from declaring open hostility 
against his government. If such a rupture should 
take place, many would of course desert the party ; 
but those who remained, agreeing better with one 
another in their opinions, and consisting of more 
independent men, would in fact be a more formidable 
opposition than the present. . . . "] 

* Lords Grey and Grenville. 



iSii.] THE PRINCE'S COOLNESS TO THE WHIGS. 145 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Wed. 
"... I wish you would come to town and let us 
have a few mischievous discussions. ... A report 
is very prevalent that the siege of Badajos is raised, 
previous to another fight. I daresay this will prove 
true. . . . / am assured that the Ministers have private 
letters from Welln., preparing them for a retreat." 

As time went on, although the King's malady 
became confirmed, so also seemed the Regent's 
inclination to maintain his father's Cabinet. The 
irritation of the Whigs increased in proportion as 
their hopes sank lower. A peep down the Prime 
Minister's area seems to have opened Creevey's eyes 
for the first time to the profligacy of the Heir 
Apparent, to which he had been blind enough in the 
rousing old days at the Pavilion. So greatly may 
judgment vary according to the point of view ! 

Mr, Creevey to Mrs. Creevey. 

"20th July, iSii. 

". . . Prinny's attachment to the present Ministers, 
his supporting their Bank Note Bill, and his dining 
with them, must give them all hopes of being con- 
tinued, as I have no doubt they will. . . . The folly 
and villainy of this Prinny is certainly beyond any- 
thing. I was forcibly struck with this as I passed 
Perceval's * kitchen just now, and saw four man cooks 
and twice as many maids preparing dinner for the 
Prince of Wales and Regent — he whose wife Perceval 
set up against him in open battle — who, at the age of 
50, could not be trusted by the sd. Perceval with the 

* The Right Hon. Spencer Perceval, became Prime Minister on 
the death of the Duke of Portland in October, 1809, and was assassi- 
nated by Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, nth 
May, 1812. 

L 



146 THE CREEVEY PAPERS: [Ch. VIL 

unrestrained government of these realms during his 
father's incapacity— he who, on his last birthday at 
Brighton, declared to his numerous guests that it was 
his glory to have bred up his daughter in the principles 
of Mr. Fox — he who, in this very year, declared by 
letter to the said Mr. Perceval, and afterwards had 
the letter published as an apology for his conduct, 
that he took him as his father s Minister, but that his 
own heart was in another quarter — by God! this is 
too much. We shall see whether he does dine there- 
or not, or whether he will send word at 5, as he did 
to poor Kinnaird, that he can't come. I have been 
walking with Kinnaird, and this excuse that came too 
late from Prinny, the Duke of York and the Duke of 
Clarence has evidently made a deep impression upon 
his lordship's mind against the Bank Note Bill, and 
everything else in which the Regent takes a part." 

Journal. 

"July 12th, 181 1. — . . . We are prorogued till the 
22nd of next month only, but the general opinion is 
the King will die before that day, and then of course 
Parliament meets again. Publick opinion, or rather 
the opinion of Parliamentary politicians, is that, in 
the event of the King's death. Lords Grenville and 
Grey will be passed over and the present ministers 
continued, with the addition of some of the Prince's 
private friends, such as Lords Moira and Hutchinson 
and Yarmouth and old Sheridan. The latter is 
' evidently very uneasy at the present state of things. 
He sat with me till 5 o'clock on Sunday morning at 
Brooks's — was very drunk — told me I had better 
get into the same boat with him in politicks — but at 
the same time abused Yarmouth so unmercifully that 
one quite perceived he thought his (Yarmouth's) boat 
was the best of the two. Apparently nothing can be 
so base as the part the Prince is acting, or so likely 
to ruin him. ... 

" Brighton, Oct ^oth. — The Prince Regent came 
here last night with the Duke of Cumberland and 
Lord Yarmouth. Everybody has been writing their 
names at the Pavilion this morning, but I don't hear 




\To face p. 146. 



i8ii.] JOURNAL. 147 

of anybody dining there to-day. ... I presume we 
shall be asked there, altho' I went to town on purpose 
to vote against his appointment of his brother the 
Duke of York to the Commandership-in-Chief of the 
Army. 

Oct S'^st — We have got an invitation from the 
Regent for to-night and are going. I learn from Sir 
Philip Francis, who dined there yesterday, the Prince 
was very gay. . . . There were twenty at dinner — no 
politicks — but still Francis says he thinks, from the 
language of the equerries and understrappers, that 
the campaign in Portugal and Lord Wellington begin 
to be out of fashion with the Regent. I think so too, 
from a conversation I had with one of the Gyps to-day 
— Congreve, author of the rocketts, and who is going, 
they say, to have a Rockett Corps.* He affects to 
sneer rather at Wellington's military talents. The 
said Congreve was at the same school with me at 
Hackney, and afterwards at Cambridge with me ; 
after that, a brother lawyer with me at Gray's Inn. 
Then he became an editor of a newspaper . . . written 
in favour of Lord Sidmouth's administration, till he 
had a libel in his paper against Admiral Berkeley, for 
which he was prosecuted and fined i^iooo. Then he 
took to inventing rocketts for the more effectual 
destruction of mankind, for which he became pat- 
ronised by the Prince of Wales, and here he is — a 
perfect Field Marshall in appearance. About 12 
years ago he wrote to me to enquire the character 
of a mistress who had lived with me some time 
before, which said mistress he took upon my recom- 
mendation, and she lives with him now, and was, 
when I knew her, cleverer than all the equerries and 
their Master put together. 

^^ Nov. ist — We were at the Pavilion last night — 
Mrs. Creevey's three daughters and myself — and had 
a very pleasant evening. We found there Lord and 
Lady Charlemont, Marchioness of Downshire and 

* Afterwards Sir William Congreve, Bart., M.P., F.R.S. Wel- 
lington disapproved of Congreve's invention when it was first brought 
to his notice. " I don't want to set fire to any town, and I don't 
know any other use of rockets." But he changed his opinion after 
witnessing their effect in action at the passage of the Adour in 1814. 



148 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

old Lady Sefton. About half-past nine, which might 
be a quarter of an hour after we arrived, the Prince 
came out of the dining-room. He was in his best 
humour, bowed and spoke to all of us, and looked 
uncommonly well, tho' very fat. He was in his full 
Field Marshal's uniform. He remained quite as 
cheerful and full of fun to the last — half-past twelve — ■ 
asked after Mrs. Creevey's health, and nodded and 
spoke when he passed us. The Duke of Cumberland 
was in the regimentals of his own Hussars,* looked 
really hideous, everybody trying to be rude to him — 
not standing when he came near them. The officers 
of the Prince's regiment had all dined with him, and 
looked very ornamental monkeys in their red breeches 
with gold fringe and yellow boots. The Prince's 
band played as usual all the time in the dining-room 
till 12, when the pages and footmen brought about 
iced champagne punch, lemonade and sandwiches. I 
found more distinctly than before, from conversation 
with the Gyps, that Wellington and Portugal are 
going down. 

" The Prince looked much happier and more un- 
embarrassed by care than I have seen him since this 
time six years. This time five years ago, when he 
was first in love with Lady Hertford, I have seen the 
tears run down his cheeks at dinner, and he has been 
dumb for hours, but now that he has the weight of 
the empire upon him, he is quite alive. ... I had a 
very good conversation with Lord Charlemont about 
Ireland, and liked him much. He thinks the Prince 
has already nearly ruined himself in Irish estimation 
by his conduct to the Catholics. 

"Nov. 2nd. — We were again at the Pavilion last 
night. . . . The Regent sat in the Musick Room 
almost all the time between Viotti, the famous violin 

E layer, and Lady Jane Houston, and he went on for 
ours beating his thighs the prop)er time for the band, 
and singing out aloud, and looking about for accom- 
paniment from Viotti and Lady Jane. It was curious 
sight to see a Regent thus employed, but he seemed 

* This was a German volunteer regiment, which disgraced itself 
at Waterloo by deserting the field at the very crisis of the French 
cavalry attack 



iSll.J JOURNAL. 149 

in high good humour. . . . There is nothing Tike a 
Minister about him, nor yet any of his old pohtical 
friends or advisers — no Sheridan, Moira or Hutchin- 
son. Yarmouth and the Duke of Cumberland are 
always on the spot, and no doubt are his real 
advisers ; but in publick they are mute, and there is 
no intercourse betv^^een the Regent and them. Sir 
Philip Francis is the only one of his old set here, but 
he is not here on the Prince's invitation, nor in his 
suite, and is evidently slighted. Tom Stepney and I 
last night calculated . that Francis and Lord Keith 
made out 150 years of age between them, and yet 
they are both here upon their preferment with the 
Regent — the first, one of the cleverest men one 
knows, and the other, one of the richest. What a 
capital libel on mankind ! PVancis said to me to-day : 
— 'Well, I am invited to dinner to-day, and that is 
perhaps all I shall get after two and twenty years' 
service.' What infernal folly for such a person to 
have put himself in the way of making so humiliating 
a confession. 

" Nov. -i^rd. — . . . I have heard of no one observa- 
tion the Regent has made yet out of the commonest 
slip-slop, till to-day Baron Montalembert told me this 
morning that, when he dined there on Friday with 
the staff of this district, the Prince said he had been 
looking over the returns of the Army in Portugal 
that morning, and that there were of British 16,500 
sick in Hospitals in Lisbon, and 4,500 sick in the field 
— in all, 21,000. It might be indiscreet in the Prince 
to make this statement from official papers, but he 
must have been struck with it, and I hope rightly, so 
as to make him think of peace. . . . 

''Nov. sth. — We were at the Prince's both last 
night and the night before (Sunday). . . . The Regent 
was again all night in the Musick Room, and not- 
content with presiding over the Band, but actually 
singing, and very loud too. Last night we were 
reduced to a smaller party than ever, and Mrs. 
Creevey was well enough to go with me and her 
daughters for the first time. Nothing could be kinder 
than the Prince's manner to her. When he first saw 
her upon coming into the drawing-room, he went up 
and took hold of both her hands, shook them heartily, 



ISO THE CREEVeY papers. [Ch. VH. 

made her sit down directly, asked her all about her 
health, and expressed his pleasure at seeing her look 
so much better than he expected. Upon her saying 
she was glad to see him looking so well, he said 
gravely he was getting old and blind. When she 
said she was glad on account of his health that he 
kept his rooms cooler than he used to do, he said he 
was quite altered in that respect — that he used to 
be always chilly, and was now never so — that he 
never had a fire even in his bedroom, and slept with 
one blanket and sheet only. ... 

"Nov. 6th. — We were again at the Pavilion last 
night . . . the party being still smaller than ever, 
and the Prince, according to his custom, being 
entirely occupied with his musick. 

"Nov. gth. — Yesterday was the last day of the 
Prince's stay at this place, and, contrary to my ex- 
pectation, I was invited to dinner. We did not sit 
down till half-past seven, tho' I went a little past six. 
The only person I found was Tom Stepney : then 
came Generals Whetham, Hammond and Cartwright, 
Lords Charlemont, Yarmouth and Ossulston, Sir 
Philip Francis, Congreve, Bloomfield and others of 
the understrappers, and finally the Regent and the 
Duke of Cumberland. We were about sixteen, 
altogether. The Prince was very merry and seemed 
very well. He began to me with saying very loud 
that he had sent for Mrs. Creevey's physic to London. 
. . . At dinner I sat opposite to him, next to 
Ossulston, and we were the only persons there at all 
marked by opposition to his appointment of his 
brother the Duke of York, or to the Government 
generally^ since he has been Regent. He began an 
old joke at dinner with me about poor Fonblanque, 
with whom I had dined six years ago at the Pavilion," 
. . . [when] the Prince and we all got drunk, and he 
was always used to say it was the merriest day he 
ever spent. However, it was soon dropped yesterday. 

"The Duke of Cumberland and Yarmouth never 
spoke. The Prince was describing a pleasant dinner 
he had had in London lately, and was going over each' 
man's name as he sat in his order at the table, and 
giving to each his due in the pleasantry of the day.- 
Coming to Col. [Sir Willoughby] Gordon he said; 



iSii,] THE CANNINGITES SCATTERED. 1 51 

'To be sure, there's not much humour in him ! ' upon 
which Ossulston and I gave both a kind of involuntary 
laugh, thinking the said Gordon a perfect impostor, 
from our recollection of his pompous, impudent 
evidence before the House of Commons in the Duke 
of York's case ; but this chuckling of ours brought 
from the Prince a very elaborate panegyric upon 
Gordon which was meant, most evidently, as a 
reproof to Ossulston and myself for quizzing him. 

"We did not drink a great deal, and were in the 
drawing-room by half-past nine or a little after ; no 
more state, I think, than formerly — ten men out of 
livery of one kind or other, and four or five footmen. 
At night everybody was there and the whole closed 
about one, and so ended the Regent's visit to 
Brighton." 

And so, it may be added, ended Creevey's intimacy 
with the Regent. Henceforward he acted in constant 
opposition to his future monarch's schemes. 



Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey. 

[1811?]. 

"... I suppose you have heard that Mr, Canning 
has entirely disbanded his little Troop. He dis- 
missed them, desiring they would no longer consider 
him as the leader of any Party in the House of 
Commons. Various reasons are assigned for it. 
C. Ellis says that a gentleman whom he did not 
name, but who is supposed to be W[illegible] sus- 
pected an immediate negociation with Ministers, 
and implied that he was the mouthpiece of the party; 
upon which Canning, in a moment of pettishness, 
set them all adrift. There are various conjectures, 
but the only fact is that they are released from 
their allegiance. Ward says it is hard to serve 
a year without wages, but he hopes to get a good 
character from his last place. The story is that 
Huskisson has been off some time and is coming in. 
. . . All Canning's friends are very sore at this last 
move ; but more because the chief sensation it excites 



152 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VII. 

is laughter, and tho' jokers themselves, they cannot 
endure any ridicule against their own lot. . . . The 
Reo-ent went to the Dandy ball last night, and only 
spoke to M. Pierrepont, one of the four who invited. 
He fairly turned his back upon the others. He sent 
a message to Sr. Harry Mildmay, saying he wished to 
speak to him ; who replied that it must be a mistake, 
because His R. H. had seen him and took no notice 
whatever of him. . . ." 



( 153 ) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

1812. 

The Marquess Wellesley, who had joined Perceval's 
Cabinet in 1809 on the resignation of Castlereagh and 
Canning, himself resigned in February, 181 2, partly 
owing to dissatisfaction at the manner in which 
the Government supported the Peninsular war, but 
chiefly because of the Regent's persistence in refus- 
ing to listen to any proposals of Roman Catholic 
relief. The King's recovery being now considered 
out of the question, it was fully expected that the 
Regent would avail himself of the occasion of a 
reconstruction of the Cabinet to put his own political 
friends in power. However, instead of dismissing 
Perceval, he invited Grey and Grenville to join his 
administration, which they refused to do so long as 
Catholic Emancipation was a forbidden subject. The 
Regent bitterly resented their conduct, and continued 
Perceval in office, until that Minister was assassinated 
in the lobby of the House of Commons on nth May. 
Meanwhile, another and a striking personality had 
appeared in Parliament, Henry Brougham, to wit. 
Elected for Camelford for the first time in 18 10, he 
had registered a vow not to open his mouth in the 
House for the first month ; which vow he kept, 
indemnifying himself for his self-control by incessant 



154 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

oratory ever after. George Ponsonby was still 
leader of the Whigs in the Commons ; but Brougham's 
energy and eloquence were so striking that he had 
not been four months a member before he was 
reckoned as one of the most formidable of the many 
candidates for the first place. His letters to Creevey 
during the early months of 1812 are very numerous; 
but it is difficult to fix the exact stage of proceedings 
to which they refer, owing to his omission to date 
them except by the day of the week. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Saturday, 6 o'clock [May? 1812]. 

"The intriguing is going on briskly. Wellesley 
has seen P.,* and then Wy. saw Grey. Grey says all is 
afloat and nothing settled, but that all will be settled 
before Monday, This shows a nibble at least, and 1 
lament it much. To be in the same boat with W. and 
Canning is pretty severe. I see no chance of their 
making such a thing as one can support ; indeed I feel 
in opposition to them already, should they agree 
about it. . . . Holland and Wellesley are at the 
bottom of it all, and have been together to-day, and 
at York House. The Spanish madness and love of 
office of Lady H[olland] is enough to do all the 
mischief we dread. Anything without the country is 
real madness or drivling. 

" In the Comee. on Orders in C[ouncil] we sat this 
morning tiW four, and I have been all day at a Sheriffs 
Jury on damages, so am knocked up and can add 
no more. 

" H. B." 

" H. of Corns, [in pencil] Friday, 22nd May, 1812. 

"They are all out. The answer of Prinny is 

short — that he is to comply immediately with the 

address to try to form a Govt. I had no hand in this 

bad work. I would not vote. It is the old blunder 

* The Prince Regent. 



i§i2.] PARLIAMENT IS DISSOLVED. 155 

of 1804— acting at Canning's benefit. The old rotten 
Ministry was to my mind." 

Mr. Creevey had a safe seat at Thetford, one of 
the Duke of Norfolk's boroughs, but his ambition was 
fired by an invitation to contest one of the seats for 
his native Liverpool. Brougham, at the same time, 
having received notice to quit from a new proprietor 
of Camelford, determined to stand for the other 
Liverpool seat ; and, on the dissolution taking place, 
these two gentlemen went down to fight Mr. Canning 
and General Gascoigne. 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

" Brougham, Friday, [May] i8l2. 

" On my return from a visit to the Jockey * I 
received yours. While there, I passed my time as 
you might suppose — drinking in the evening, and in 
the morning going thro' tete-a-tete with him the red 
book and other lists of baro's. It was quite a comedy. 
I believe I can almost come up to the never-to-be- 
forgotten or surpassed night enjoyed by Ld. S[efton] 
and yourself with that venerable feudal character. 
We had women — and speeches — in the first style : the 
subjects infinitely various, from bawdy to the depths 
of politics, and this morning at breakfast he was 
pleased to enter largely on the subject of the Daiety 
and his foreknowledge ; settling that question as 
satisfactorily as if it had been one touching the Gairter, 
which he likewise discussed at length. 1 assure you 
I have had two choice days, and there wanted only 
some one Xianlike person to enjoy it with, and the 
presence also of a few comforts — such as a necessary, 
towels, water, &c., &c., to make the thing compleat. 
He goes up to-morrow to Airimdel, and he is coming 
here on his way (to talk about the dissolution), which 
will give me a more quiet slice of his humours ; for 
there was rather a crowd of parasites. . . ." 

* The nth Duke of Norfolk. 



156 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. Vlll. 

There follows here a long discussion of the ques- 
tion whether Creevey and Brougham — either of them, 
both, or neither— should stand for Liverpool. Creevey 
is comfortably settled in Thetford; Brougham is 
inclined to stand without him, lest he should " turn 
out poor Tarlton," who is as good an opponent of the 
Tory Government as if he had been an out-and-out 
Radical. As to finding himself returned as Canning's 
colleague — "only fancy the folly of being coupled 
with Canning ! ... it would be laughable to join us 
together." Then he continues — 

". . . As to being out of Parlt. — don't laugh at 
me if I say I really should submit to such a fate with 
composure, indeed with cheerfulness. I am fond of 
my profession, which you'll say a queer taste ; but I 
really so delight in it more and more every day. I 
see also how greatly 1 might rise in it by this means, 
and how infallibly I should command anything par- 
liamentary that I might chuse, after a few years, 1 his 
is clear, and I might be as much of a demagogue as I 
thought fit to be — I mean, in a good sense — and these 
times require looking outside of Parlt, in my opinion, 
as much as any we have lived in." 

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey. 

" House of Commons, (May) 25th, 1812, 

" Oh dear ! I have been waiting for Whitbread's 
latest intelligence, till I have little time left. First 
then, when Prinney sent for Wellesley, the latter 
began by mentioning some of the Opposition as 
persons to be consulted with; to which the former 
replied — ' Don't mention any names to me now, my 
lord, but make an Administration for me.' To which 
the other says — ' In a business of such nicety I trust 
your Royal Highness will not press me for time.' 
— 'Take your own time,' says Prinney, ' tho' there is 
not a shilling left in the Exchequer.' Well, off sets 
Wellesle}^, calling at the doors of the Opposition — 



i8i2.] WHO SHALL BE PREMIER? 157 

Grey, Grenville, Holland and Moira ; and yesterday 
some minutes of their conversations were made that 
had taken place between Wellesley, Grey and Gren- 
ville about the Catholic question and the war in Spain. 
There is some vague kind of coincidence of sentiments 
expressed between them on these subjects — no other 
subject mentioned. With this first fruit of his ex- 
pedition Wellesley went to Carlton House last night 
at seven, and just as he was beginning to dilate upon 
his success, rrinney told him he was busy, and that 
he must call again to-day. . . . This I know to be 
quite true; it comes from Grey through Whitbread 
to me. 

"This is the whole effect of the defeat of the old 
Government, and in the meantime the said old Govern- 
ment have one and all contracted with each other in 
writing never to act with such a villain as Wellesley 
again ; in which they are quite right, but what think 
you of such a patron for our friends ? Well : we had 
Whitbread and Lady Elizabeth at Holland House 
yesterday, Milton, Althorp, Lord John Russell, 
Sheridan, Lord Ossory, Fitzpatrick, Horner, Bennett 
and many more, and we had a very merry day, 
occasioned by my jokes about our new patron the 
Marquis [Wellesley]. Poor Holland was quite inimit- 
able, but I will tell you more about it to-morrow. 
They will be all ruined : they have flung Whitbread 
overboard : he has just told me so himself, and that 
Lord Grey had just told him so in the coolest manner. 
Not a word of this ! but it is death to them. He told 
me yesterday his fixed determination to have nothing 
to do with Wellesley and Canning, and they have 
anticipated him. . . ." 

" House of Commons, Tuesday, 26th. 

". . . Well : nothing is known to-day except that 
Prinney saw both Eldon and Liverpool yesterday for 
a long time before he saw Wellesley, and that a 
Cabinet Council of the old Ministers was summoned 
to Liverpool's office last night, and sat for a long time. 
. . . Well, the jaw is over. Castlereagh says the old 
Government is still out, and he knows nothing of any 
new one. It is true that Prinney told Wellesley that 
Grey and Grenville were a couple of scoundrels, and 



158 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

that Moira was a fellow no honest man could speak 
to. Wellesley then told him the danger he was 
exposed to, both himself, his throne and his country, 
washed his hands of him and his concerns, and is 
actually gone out of town. Ferguson told me he 
knew all this, and of course Moira is his authority. 
Canning will have nothing to do with the old Govern- 
ment, and has just renewed his motion about the 
Catholic question. Prinney must be stark staring 
mad, by God ! . . . The projected exclusion of Whit- 
bread from the new Cabinet is spreading like wildfire 
against Grey and Grenville." 

" Brooks's, 27th. 

"Well, after all that passed between Prinney and 
Wellesley on Monday night, after all the foul language 
about Moira, &c., late last night Prinney sent for 
Moira and flung himself upon his mercy. Such a 
scene I never heard of; the young monarch cried loud 
and long ; in short he seems to have been very nearly 
in convulsions. The afflicting interview was entirely 
occupied with lamentations over past errors, and 
delight at brighter prospects for the future under the 
happier auspices of his old and true friend now 
restored. Moira told him generally the terrible state 
of the countr}'', which the other said had been con- 
cealed from him by his Ministers, and that he had 
not seen a paper these three or four weeks. Moira 
suggested to him that perhaps he would wish to be 
T^OTQ composed before they went further into detail, 
and this was agreed to, so he has been there again 
to-day for three hours. I saw him come away at a 
little before four, and Lord Dundas called with me at 
his door and found he had gone off" to Lord Wellesley's, 
where Grenville and Grey now are hearing the sub- 
stance of this long interview of Moira with his Master. 
. . . My jokes about Wellesley are in great request. 
Lady Holland said to me on Sunday in the drawing- 
room after dinner — 'Come here and sit by me, you 
mischievous toad, and promise that you won't begin 
upon the new Government with your jokes. When 
you do, begin with those Grenvilles.' I dined at old 
Tankerville's yesterday, who said — ' Creevey, never 



i8i2.] PROLONGED SUSPENSE. 159 

desert Wellesley ! give it him well, I beg of you.' 
Sefton asked me to dine there to-day, evidently with 
the same view. Sheridan is more base in his resent- 
ment against Whitbread than you can imagine, and 
all from Drury Lane disappointment." 

"House of Commons, 28th. 

". . . Just after I finished my letter yesterday, I met 
Sheridan coming from a long interview with the Prince, 
and goin^ with a message to Wellesley ; so of course I 
walked with him and got from him all I could. . . . He 
described the Prince's state of perturbation of mind as 
beyond anything he had ever seen. He conceives the 
different candidates for office to be determined upon his 
ruin ; and, in short, I begin to think that his reign will 
end in a day or two in downright insanity. He first 
sends for one person, then another. Eldon is always 
told everything that passes, and the Duke of York 
(Lord Grey's friend and slave) is the unalterable and 
inveterate opposer of his brother having anything to 
do with the Opposition. He and Eldon work day and 
night to keep rrinney in the right course. Melville is 
a great favorite too. To-day he (Prinney) has seen 
the Doctor* and Westmorland, Buckinghamshire, 
and now Moira is with him. Canning has been 
found out in some intrigue with Liverpool already. 
There has been some explanation between Grey and 
Whitbread, certainly creditable to the former. He 
has admitted to the fullest extent the importance of 
the Brewer t and his own unalterable and unfavorable 
opinion of Canning. He maintained this opinion to 
his friends as strongly as he could, and pressed them, 
as they valued able and upright men to shuffling 
rogues, to stand by Whitbread and abandon Canning. 
In this proposition, however, he stood alone. Petty 
and Holland even were against him. Grey pronounced 
that tho' he was bound by this decision, he knew such 
decision must inevitably be their ruin. He has told 
all this to Brougham, as well as to Whitbread, and 
you know he always at least tells the truth. Of course 
you will not quote this. . . . From Lisbon the accounts 

* Lord Sidmouth. t Mr. Whitbread. 



l6o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

are very unfavorable. The American embargo has 
produced the greatest consternation, and our Com- 
missariat is utterly destitute of money or credit. In 
addition to this, General officers write home that the 
ravages of the late sieges and other things have made 
a supply of 30,000 men from this country absolutely 
necessary, if Portugal alone is to be kept." 

" Brooks's, Friday, 29th. 

" Everybody as wise as we were yesterday. Moira 
has seen Prinney to-day again, but nothing done. 
Moira told him he must decline being any longer 
employed in so hopeless an undertaking, and is deter- 
mined to have the thing concluded one way or other. 
Prinney tells him no Prince was ever so idolized by 
the people, of this country as himself, and that he is 
quite strong enough to go on with any Government 
that he gives his support to. Wortley is to give 
another notice on Monday of a motion for Tuesday to 
bring this infatuated man to his senses. By God ! if 
he continues in his present state he will be having 
such things said of him as will rouse him with a 
witness. ..." 

" Brooks's, Saturday, 30th. 

" It really begins to be almost too farcical to write 
about this madman and his delay." 

"York St., Monday, ist June. 

"As Folkestone, Bennett and I are to go from the 
H. of Commons this afternoon to dine at Richmond, I 
begin my dispatch here, least I should have no time 
to do it at the House. Folky and Bennett return at 
night, but I shall sleep there. . . . The more one sees 
of the conduct of this most singular man [the Prince 
Regent], the more one becomes convinced he is 
doomed, from his personal character alone, to shake, 
his throne. He is playing, I have no doubt he thinks, 
some devilish deep game, from which he will find he 
is utterly unable of extricating himself without the 
most serious and lasting injury to himself and cha- 
racter. ... I dined at Taylor's last night with that 



i8i2.] LORD WELLESLEY TRIES HIS HAND. l6l 

excellent young man Lord Forbes,* and I have never 
seen a greater appearance of worth and honor in any 
young man in my life. Besides being Moira's nephew, 
he is an aide-de-camp to the Regent, and he has received 
such usage from his Master, either on his uncle's 
account or his own voting in Parliament, that he won't 
go near him, and greatly to the horror of Taylor, he 
came to dine yesterday with the yellow lining and the 
Prince's buttons taken away from his coat. He said 
never again would he carry about him so degrading 
a badge of servitude to such a master. To Taylor, 
who was done up in the neatest edition of the said 
badge, this was too much. On Saturday, a great lot 
of us dined at Kit Hutchinson's request at the British 
Coffee House, with the gentlemen educated at Trinity 
College, Dublin ; Kit in the chair, and it really was 
most entertaining. Irish genius for speaking and 
eloquence was never more conspicuous : upon my 
soul, I think five or six fellows who spoke — quite 
young men — spoke as well as Pitt. ..." 

" House of Commons. 
" Well, now we have made a start. Mr. Canning has 
got up with due pomp and dignity, and has declared he 
has full authority to state from his noble friend Lord 
Wellesley that he. Lord Wellesley, has this morning 
received from the Regent his Royal Highness's com- 
mands to form an administration. So much for this 
first official act of the new Whig Government ! . . ." 

"Richmond Hill, June 2nd. 

" Very large paper this, my precious, but we must 
see what we can make of it. As the day is so charm- 
ing and the country so inviting, I have resolved to 
stay over the day, and accordingly my cloaths have 
gone to be washed. I leave, therefore, this eventful, 
day in London to all the heart-rending anxieties of 
politicians, who, I think, have as hopeful a prospect 
of disappointment as ever politician had. I cannot 
bring myself to regret that 1 am not to serve under 

* Not the Scottish peer of that name, but the eldest son of the 6th 
Earl of Granard by a daughter of the ist Earl of Moira. He was 
father of the present Lord Granard. 

M 



l62 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

Marquis Wellesley or Mr. Canning. . . . We shall 
now see what this singular association of statesmen 
will be able to do. Canning is for Orders in Council, 
Grenville considers them as the source of all the exist- 
ing national distress. Grenville thinks the country 
incapable of sustaining the expenditure of the war: 
Wellesley thinks such war to be starved by our penury. 
Grey is against all secret influence ; Prinney says 
he will part with his life rather than his household. 
Prinney, Wellesley and Canning have each betrayed 
everybody they have had to do with — pretty com- 
panions for a man of honor like Grey ! . . . Prinney 
will not strike yet to Grey and Grenville without 
conditions to which they will not submit. What is 
to be done, too, on minor subjects? What is Jack 
Horner to do with his notice of motion on McMahon's 
salary, or how is Bankes's bill to be permitted to pass, 
which, besides abolishing patent places of all kinds as 
they become vacant, goes immediately to strike off our 
Paymaster-Genl., our Postmaster, our Mustermaster, 
&c., &c., &c., all of which said places so to be abolished 
are doubtless looked up to with great affection and 
anxiety by the young friends and by the old Whigs, 
by the Vernons, Wards and McDonalds, &c., or by 
the Ponsonbys, Freemantles, &c., &c. I flatter myself 
both Tierney and Huskisson are to be Cabinet 
Ministers, which, considering that Burke and Sheri- 
dan, Dunning and {illegible] used to be considered as 
not elevated enough in rank to be admitted into such 
high company, will be well enough. 

" I must, upon the whole, condemn Grey as acting 
most unwisely in putting himself forward as a candi- 
date for power under all the circumstances of the 
country. He would have done much better to wait 
till Grenville's death or some other event dissolved 
the fatal connection with that family. He ought to 
have let Wellesley and Canning perish in their own 
intrigues, and he ought to have permitted the old and 
feeble Government to conduct the country so near its 
ruin that men could no longer doubt either its con- 
dition or the authors of its calamities. In such a case, 
which would have inevitably arrived, the country and 
the Crown would have called for his assistance, and 
in such case only, my belief is, could he have done 



lSi2.] LORD GREY STANDS ALOOF. 163 

permanent good to the country with honor to himself. 
. . . Grenville I consider a dead man, and Prinneyj 
Wellesley and Canning are both madmen and villains. 
... In the meantime, we must have sport. Amongst 
other things, we must have the Bank made to pay us 
in specie . . . which would give you and me £700 per 
annum more than we have. This would be something 
like, so we shall see what we shall see." 

*' Richmond Hill, Wednesday, 3rd. 

" I have dilly-dallied so long here that if I don't set 
out directly I shall not get in time to write you a word, 
my precious, so I will first fire a little shot at you 
before I leave this place. William brought us last 
night just such intelligence as I was prepared to 
expect from Petty that the Marquis [Wellesley] had 
been with Earl Grey and had offered him and his 
friends four seats in the Cabinet ; that he himself had 
condescended to become First Lord of the Treasury, 
that there must be some limitations of concession to 
Ireland, with a great variety of other restraints upon 
the four poor Foxite and Grenville Ministers, the 
whole of which induced the Earl to give the Marquis 
the most unqualified rejection of these proposed indig- 
nities. Ha! ha! ha! or Oh dear me! which of these 
exclamations is best suited to the occasion. Is one to 
laugh at our poor foolish party having so obviously 
and so fatally for themselves played the game of these 
villains Wellesley and Canning, or is one to cry at the 
never-failing success of rascality in this country ? Oh 
how glad 1 am that I had no hand in making this mad- 
man Wellesley preside over the destinies of this 
country, to sacrifice the thousands of brave lives that 
he will assuredly do in Spain and Portugal, and to 
torture by poverty and privations the thousands that 
will feel the effects of his extravagance in England." 

" York St., Thursday, 4th. 

" Betty and I are just put into port for the 
purpose of my writing you a single line before the 
post goes. We have had a very prosperous voyage 
to Mrs. Fitzherbert's and old Lady Grey's, both of 
whom we found at home. We have seen in the 



164 THE CREEVEY PAPERS." [Ch. VIII. 

Streets various persons — Albemarle, _ Lord _ Henry 
Fitzroy, Parnell,* &c., &c. Well, Prinney is in a 
capital way, is he not ? There was a meeting last 
night at Grenville's of opposition lords to hear the 
history of all that has passed on the late occasion, 
and there was another similar one of the Commons 
to-day at Ponsonby's. . . . Wellesley, we are told, 
was as good as turned out of Carlton House when 
he went back with Grey's refusal on Tuesday, and 
this accounts for the ' violent personal objections ' 
which he describes Prinney as having to Grey and 
others. It is a rare mess, by God ! . . ." 

" Friday, 5 th. 

". . . Moira has done nothing yet. Everybody has 
refused him, but he is quite taken in by the Prince's 
cajolery, and there is no saying what folly they may 
not commit in their selection of a Ministry. . . ." 

" York St., Saturday, 6th. 

". . . In coming up from the House I was much 
surprised to meet Sam (Whitbread) covered with 
smiles. He was enquiring where he could find 
Sheridan. ... I presumed his trip to town was 
merely upon private business, and in this persuasion 
I remained till almost 3 o'clock this morning, when 
old Sheridan became drunk and communicative. He 
then told me he had sent an express for Sam, and 
that the said Sam had been dining at Moira's, with 
him Sheridan. Further than this he did not tell me, 
excepting the expression of his own conviction that 
Sam was the man both for the Prince and the People, 
and that Wellesley, Canning and Grenville must all 
be swamped and flung overboard. Was there ever 
anything equal to this? ... If Sam does come in, 
it must now be upon his own terms, and I cannot 
think, after all my honest conduct to him, he could 
desert me. . . . The Whigs evidently know of an 
offer made to Whitbread, and are as civil to-day as 
be damned. . . ." 

* Henry Brook Parnell, M.P. [1776-1842], created Lord Congleton 
in 1841 ; grand-uncle of Charles Stewart Parnell. 



i8i2.] LORD LIVERPOOL TAKES OFFICE. 165 



" Brooks's, Monday, Sth. 

"... I found from Sheridan yesterday just before 
dinner that Moira was First Lord of the Treasury, 
and that it was expected that the writs of Canning 
and others would be moved for to-night in the 
Commons. . . . He said he and Whitbread were to 
dine at Moira's yesterday, and he concluded with his 
regret that Whitbread was not Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. ... I came, of course, here in the even- 
ing, and I soon found there was a meeting of the 
party at Ponsonby's to which, as I had no summons, 
of course I did not go. I found from people as they 
returned from this meeting that Whitbread had given 
great offence by giving his opinion that Grey and 
Grenville had pushed the thing too far in insisting, 
under all circumstances of the case, upon the sur- 
render of the household. . . . This morning brought to 
my bed a note from Whitbread desiring to see me, 
which of course I instantly complied with, and from 
himself I learnt all the particulars of his intercourse 
with Moira. . . . Moira produced his plan for revok- 
ing Orders in Council, conciliating America by all 
manner of means, the most rigid economical reform, 
nay, parliamentary reform if it was wished for : in 
short every subject was most agreeable and satis- 
factory. ... So far so good . . . but I have such a 
devil of new matter pressing upon me I must be 
off. Huskisson has just announced to people in the 
streets that Moira's powers are revoked, and that a 
message is coming from the Prince saying he (Moira) 
cannot form a Government, and that he has ordered 
his old servants to proceed with public business." 

" House of Commons. Same date. 

" Well, this is beyond anything. Castlereagh has 
just told us that Moira resigned the commission this 
morning, and that His Royal Highness had appointed 
Lord Liverpool Prime Minister. Was there ever any- 
thing equal to this ? . . ." 



l66 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

" House of Commons, Tuesday, 9th. 

", . . There has been a meeting of Government 
members at Lord Liverpool's house to-day, and he 
has declared to them the intention of the Government 
not to oppose the Catholic question as a Government 
measure, but everybody is to do as he pleases. Of 
course the measure will now take place and it will be 
done by Liverpool, Eldon,* &c. This convinces me 
more than ever of the great fault committed by Grey 
and Grenville in letting their negociations go off 
about the Household . . . but they are all at once 
so prodigiously constitutional, one almost suspects 
one's own judgment. They are, at all events, dished 
for the present, and most lucky will they be to be 
so, if anything like a rupture with America is now 
determined upon by that country, because that 
event, I am positive, gives check-mate at once to the 
revenue of this country." f 

" House of Commons, Wednesday, loth. 
"Well, the Doctor I succeeds Ryder as Secretary 
of State for the Home Department ; Lord Harrowby 
succeeds the Doctor; Lord Bathurst succeeds Lord 
Liverpool, Bragge Bathurst is Chancellor of the 
Dutchy — such is the worthy new Administration. Is 
it not capital? so much for 'No predilections' nor 
yet 'resentments.'" 

Sydney Smith to Mr. Creevey {who had written at 
Lord Grey's request to desire him to vote for Lord 
Milton). 

"June 6th, 1812. 
"Your letter followed me here, where I had 
come after voting for Lord Milton,§ one of the most 

* It was done by their party, but not until sixteen years had 
passed ; Liverpool was dead, and Eldon as strongly opposed as ever to 
emancipation. 

t War with the United States began exactly nine days after these 
words were written. 

% Lord Sidmouth. 

§ Eldest son of the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam. 



i8i2.] CREEVEY STANDS FOR LIVERPOOL. 167 

ungainly looking young men I ever saw. I gave my 
other vote for Wilberforce,* on account of his good 
conduct in Africa, a place returning no members to 
parliament, but still, from the extraordinary re- 
semblance its inhabitants bear to human creatures, 
of some consequence. An election out of West- 
minster is sad work — at the moment of the greatest 
ferment, York was, in the two great points of ebriety 
and pugnacity, as quiet as average London at about 
3 o'clock in the morning." 

The following extracts are from the exceedingly 
voluminous reports which Mr. Creevey sent almost 
daily to his wife during the contest for Liverpool. 

" Tuesday, h past one. " The name of this place is the 

(September, 1812.) Fair Unknown, a single house 

14 miles this side of Colchester 
and about 30 miles on this 
side of Thetford. 

"No horses, by Jingo! so I'll eat a tight little 
beef stake, tho' it is so early in the day ; but what, 
you know, am I to do till the horses come home? 
, . . Oh, I find the name of my present residence is 
Copdock. . . ." 

" Thetfoid, Wednesday, September, 1812. 

". . . So the parliament is really dissolved, my 
pretty, and I have seen the principal people of my 
constituents, and they behave like angels to me. I 
mean your Bidwells, Faux's, Pawsons, &c., &c., take 
a deep interest about Liverpool, and will do what- 
ever 1 wish as to the time of bringing on my election 
here, so as to forward my views at Liverpool, will 
not be the least offended if I succeed at Liverpool 
for electing to sit for the latter place, and will bring 
in any other person in my place whom the Petre 
family shall name. . . . This is something like, is it 
not? What is more, they talk of dining at their own 

* William Wilberforce [i 759-1 S33], M.P. for Hull 1780, and for 
Yorkshire 1784. An active philanthropist, his name must ever be 
associated with the suppression of the Slave Trade. 



l68 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

expense on the day of election, i.e., giving me a dinner 
instead of my giving them one, and so to save me as 
they say, from being plundered. I begin to think 
Mankind's damned fair, don't you? . . . I am nov^ 
perfectly at ease upon this subject, and to be sure 
there v^as never anyone so fortunate as I am in 
escaping the agony of any dilemma upon an occasion 
of such complicated importance." 

Unpleasant rumours began to fly about presently 
concerning the intentions of the Duke of Grafton, 
who owned the second seat for Thetford, the Duke 
of Norfolk and Lord Petre owning the other. 
Creevey had become the guest of Mr, Bernard 
Howard at Fornham, near Bury, pending a summons 
to Liverpool. He was getting nervous about the 
tricks his colleague in that candidature might play 
him, for he had learnt already to regard Brougham 
with considerable distrust. 

". . . Forster speaks very mysteriously about 
Ossulston's having the Duke's seat (for Thetford) 
again, which alarmed me not a little. Our neigh- 
bour. Marchioness Cornwallis, was passing in her 
barouche, and calls Howard to the carriage, who was 
alone in the road. 

" ' And so,' says she, * the Duke of Grafton turns 
Mr. Creevey out of Thetford at last.' 

" ' Upon your soul ! ' says Barny, ' then there's a 
volley for you, for Mr. Creevey is now at my house, 
and is to be member for Thetford next Thursday, and 
for Liverpool the week after.' 

" So the Gordon chienne * went off as grumpy 
as be damned! . . . Howard is very good to me 
and I amuse him very much. He is confidential 
about young Harry and the dukedom, which he 
evidently expects to be in possession of before long. 

* The Marchioness Cornwallis (who died in 1850) was daughter 
of Jane, Duchess of Gordon, wife of the 4th duke. 



i8i2.] RE-ELECTED FOR THETFORD. 169 

I see he means never to sell his seats. Jockey 
does."* 

" Fornham, Sunday, 4th October. 

" Diddy t has no letter again to-day from Roscoe,t 
but he expects one by express in the course of the 
evening. I should not be least surprised if the Liver- 
pool election did not take place till to-morrow week, 
and that in that event I might safely stay over the 
Thetford one on Thursday, . . . This express, when- 
ever it comes from Roscoe, will bring with it, of 
course, some of Brog-ham's ingenuous remarks. . . . 
Bernard Howard is deeply affected with the apparent 
treachery of my colleague [Brougham], and his evident 
wishes to give me the go-by ; but we shall see what 
we shall see." 

The express came that night ; a note from 
Brougham, and a letter from Roscoe with news from 
Liverpool. 

". . . Gascoigne and Tarleton § came here to-day, 
both indifferently supported, particularly the latter, 
who came on horseback with only two friends. They 
are neither of them popular. . . . Canning, it is said, 
will make his appearance on Monday. . . . Gladstone 
is his commander-in-chief. Believe me, our prospects 
are very flattering." 

Creevey, therefore, had to set out for Liverpool 
post haste, but found time at every stopping-place to 
write to his wife. He was duly elected without 
opposition for Thetford on 8th October. 

'■ * The nth Duke of Norfolk was known as "the Jockey." He 
died in 18 15, and was succeeded in the dukedom by the above- 
mentioned Bernard Howard, great-grandfather of the present duke. 

t Creevey's pet names among his family were Diddy and Nummy. 

X William Roscoe [1753-1831], historian, &c. ; represented Liver- 
pool in 1806, but lost his seat in 1807. 

§ The old members for Liverpool. Tarleton retired in favour of 
Canning. Colonel (afterwards General Sir Banastre) Tarleton [1754- 
1833] was for twenty-one years member for Liverpool. 



I7C THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

" Cambridge, Monday, 5th Oct. 

'' You will be somewhat surprised to see Diddy's 
handwriting from his favorite University. The ac- 
companying letter from Wm. Roscoe will explain this 
movement. . . . Bernard Howard has been as good 
to me as possible, and you would delight in his 
suspicions of Brougham. . . . Come, Mr. John Horn, 
where are my eels and mutton-chops? — Here they 
are, by Jingo, and the said John, who is an old friend 
of mine of five and twenty years' standing, says he 
can give me an excellent bottle of port. — No such 
thing : I never tasted worse. The chops were, how- 
ever, damned fair. ... I send for the approbation of 
yourself and my dears, Diddy's colours at Thetford. 
. . . To Diddy himself they produce most agreeable 
sensations ; they constitute to him a certain seat in 
parliament, and they remind him of a connection 
really virtuous, without propitiating a capricious 
bitch, and without Villain [Brougham] always fright- 
ful. So I am as happy as a grig with little Thet, and 
don't care a damn for Liverpool my little PeC 

Arrived in Liverpool, Creevey was plunged into 
the thick of a hot contest, the details whereof are ot 
little interest at this day. At that period, the poll 
remained open for many days, generally a fortnight, 
and Creevey reported progress every night to his 
wife at Brighton. Brougham succeeded at first in 
reassuring him as to his good faith. 

" Liverpool, nth Oct. 

"... I must say Brougham behaves as well as a 
man can possibly do, and I am every day more struck 
with the endless mine of his intellectual resources. 
Nevertheless his speech to the crowd yesterday was 
thought not near so good as mine. . . . The people 
pet me in a way that is, upon my soul, affecting. . . . 
Lord Hutchinson says the Russian accounts of their 
victories are all lies, and that they are inevitably 
ruined, and the French quite safe in Moscow, having 
quite cut off all the trade of Petersburgh and Riga." 



I8i2.] DEFEAT AT LIVERPOOL. 171 

*' 14th October. 
". . . We had an excellent day yesterday : Sefton, 
Stanley,* Brougham, Roscoe, Ashton, Heywood, &c., 
&c. To be sure it is quite astonishing to see the 
superiority of our friends over those of the enemy as 
to rank and good manners, and then they do behave 
so perfectly to one, it is quite beautiful. . . . Sefton 
has really been most interesting to me since breakfast 
in discussing the educationof his son, Lord Molyneux, 
who is sixteen years of age, at Eton and a tutor with 
him. Who would think that these people (I mean he 
and my lady), in the midst of their eating and drink 
and play and racing, &c., &c., are eternally at work 
in the education of their children ? . . . My lady is 
greatly touched at my writing to you every day, and 
praises me much for it. . . ." 

"Thursday, i8th Oct. 

"Well, my pretty, Diddy and Brog-ham are fairly 
done — beat to mummy; but we are to take the chance 
of some miracle taking place in our favor during the 
night, and are not to strike till eleven or twelve or 
one to-morrow. We had to do with artists who did 
not know their trade. Poor Roscoe made much too 
sanguine an estimate of our strength. . . ." 

Creevey and Brougham withdrew from the contest 
next day, Creevey being at the bottom of the poll 
with 1060 votes, but claiming a moral victory. 

"To play second fiddle to Brougham," he wrote 
to his wife, " would not be worth a dam. If it be an 
object worthy my ambition to get possession of 
Liverpool and to keep it, then I say that my game, and 
my game only, has been played, and that the whole 
dramatis personce, Brougham and Canning included, 
might have been puppets selected by myself to serve 
my own ulterior purposes. Depend upon it, Diddy 
never played a slyer part than in his unassuming, 
modest character in which he has appeared before his 
fellow townsmen. 

* Afterwards 13th Earl of Derby. 



172 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

". . . My popularity with all sides I find still keeps 
up to the last, tho' I was last upon the poll. . . . There 
is to be a grand affair here on Friday — a dinner and a 
ball and supper for Canning. He goes dining out 
daily, to Boulton's and such places. I envy not his 
happy lot ! ..." 

"Croxteth Park, 17th Oct., 1812. 

"Now for the first time since Diddy left home, 
can he sit down in quietness to write to his pretty. 
. . . As to the result of the campaign, disastrous 
as it is in the extent of the defeat, it is impos- 
sible to consider the whole as unfavorable to me 
In the first place, my friends will have no occasion 
for their compassion for my being out of parliament. 
This is everything to begin with. Then I have begun 
a connection with the town of Liverpool to be used 
or not at my discretion on future occasions. . . . 
Canning, in the present state of things, must be shortly 
in office, and then he vacates, and I never will believe 
that as a Minister of State he will submit to the club 
canvassing. . . . You never saw a fellow in your life 
look so miserable as he has done throughout. ... I 
have been perfectly amazed during this campaign at the 
marvellous talent of Brougham in his addresses to the 
people. He poured in a volley of declamation against 
the immortal memory of Pitt the day before yesterday, 
describing his immortality as proclaimed by the 
desolation of his own country and the subjugation of 
mankind, that, by God, shook the very square and all 
the houses in it from the applause it met with. Yester- 
day he renewed the subject by a comparison of Fox 
with Pitt, that was done with equal skill and success. 
Still, 1 cannot like him. He has always some game 
or underplot out of sight — some mysterious corre- 
spondence — some extraordinary connection with 
persons quite opposite to himself" 

" Knowsley, 19th Oct. 

". . . We are all mighty gracious here. My lady 
[Derby] told me before we went in to dinner yesterday 
to sit with my best ear next to her. . . . We sat down 
22 to dinner, all of them Hornbys, except 4 Hortons, 2 
Ramthornes, young Ashton and myself My lord was 




HENRY BROUGHAM IN EARLY LIFE. 



\Tofacc p. lyz. 



i8i2.] AT KNOWS LEY. 1/3 

in excellent spirits, and, for such company, it went off 
all very well. ... I never saw Lady Stanley looking 
so well, or in such good spirits. She and her lord 
are damned attentive to Diddy, so upon the whole, 
you know, it is very well he came. ... I won a 
shilling last night, I'd have you know, and then ate 
some shrimps, and Lady Derby would have some 
negus made for me alone ; and all the toadys laughed 
very much, because my lady did, so it was all very 
well. ... 

"There is beginning to be damned distress in 
Liverpool already, and if the Americans will but 
continue the war for a twelvemonth, Masters Canning 
and Gascoigne and their supporters will have enough 
of it. 

". . . Let me not omit to mention to you that 
Col. Gordon,* who you know is with Wellington, is in 
constant correspondence with both Grey and Whit- 
bread, and that his accounts are of the most desponding 
cast. He considers our ultimate discomfiture as a 
question purely of time, and that it may happen on 
any day, however early ; that our pecuniary resources 
are utterly exhausted, and that the [illegible] of the 
French in recovering from their difficulties is in- 
exhaustible ; that Wellington himself considers this 
resurrection of Marmont's broken troops as an absolute 
miracle in war, and in short Gordon considers that 
Wellington is in very considerable danger.f Of 
course you will not use this information but in the 
most discreet manner." 

Creevey took his defeat with equanimity, falling 
back upon his seat at Thetford. Not so Brougham, 
who could not but feel sore at his exclusion from an 

* The Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon, brother of the 4th Earl of 
Aberdeen. He was aide-de-camp, first to his uncle, Sir David Baird, 
then to the Duke of Wellington, and was killed at Waterloo. 

t Marmont having been defeated at Salamanca on 22nd July, 
Wellington occupied Madrid. But on 21st October he was forced to 
raise the siege of Burgos and begin his retreat upon the Portuguese 
frontier, which partook more of the nature of disaster than any 
operation ever undertaken by him. 



1/4 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. VIII. 

arena where he felt so well qualified to excel. And 
when Brougham felt sore, he made it his business to 
make others smart also; never did he forgive Grey 
for the philosophy with which that gentleman accepted 
Brougham's departure from Parliament. 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"The Hoo, 1812. 
". . . Should I (being quite certain that I am out 
for good, inasmuch as I see no possible seat and have 
received from all the leaders, except Grey, regular 
letters of dismissal, thanking me for past services, 
&c.) should I take parliamentary practice or not ? My 
first intention was quite clear agt. it ; for, tho' I don't 
affect to say a large bit of money would be disagree- 
able, yet gold may be bought too dear, and I don't 
like to lower myself, either in Parlt. or the country, 
to Adam's level. I never hesitated on this till I began 
to get angry with the leading Whigs for their cool 
way of taking leave [of me] ; as much as to say — it is 
out of the question our ever bringing you in again. 
This, and the knowledge of others, as Plume [?], &c., 
being brought in, has rather raised my spleen, and 
given me an inclination to go into that line and make 
enough to buy a seat (with what 1 can afford to add, 
viz. i5"2000 or ;^25oo), and then come in and enjoy the 
purest of all pleasures — at once do what 1 most 
approve of in politics and give the black ones an 
infernal licking every other night ! Now really this 
is my only inducement, and I am half doubting about 
it. My judgment tells me not to go into Committee 
practice; but what do you think? I own I shall be 
pleased if you are as clear agt. it as I feel ; but pray 
give your opinion with dispatch. Talk it over with 
Ward if you see him. . . ." 



( 175 ) 



CHAPTER IX. 

1813-1814. 

The Tories came back triumphant from the polls in 
181 2. Lord Liverpool had succeeded Perceval as 
Prime Minister ; although Canning remained still an 
ominous, brooding figure on the skirts of the party. 
Castlereagh had succeeded Wellesley at the Foreign 
Office, and his charming manner and amiability stood 
him in far better stead as leader of the House of 
Commons than greater rhetorical gifts could have 
done. Moreover, his able and far-sighted conduct of 
foreign policy, coupled with the favourable progress 
of the Peninsular campaign, impressed men at last 
with the conviction that Napoleon had overshot his 
mark, and that the will of England was to be enforced. 
Under these depressing circumstances, the old Whigs 
inclined to withdraw from active hostilities in Par- 
liament ; while the Radicals — "the Mountain," as they 
delighted to call themselves — cast about for some 
new weapon of offence against the hated Administra- 
tion. There was one ready to their hand — one that 
was to serve them for many a year to come ; and it 
was Brougham, though without a seat in Parliament, 
who best saw its value and how it was to be wielded. 
It were an unpleasant and unnecessary task to 
repeat the unlovely story of the Prince Regent's 



176 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

married life. It is enough to remember that, in order 
to please his father, George III., and induce him to 
pay his debts, the Prince married Princess Caroline 
of Brunswick in 1795. She never was an agreeable 
woman ; there never was the slightest affection be- 
tween them, and, after the birth of their only child. 
Princess Charlotte, they separated ; and the Prince, 
among many other less venial loves, returned to Mrs. 
Fitzherbert, whom he had solemnly married in 1786; 
and for whom, as Mr. Creevey has already explained in 
these papers, he maintained a remarkable establish- 
ment at Brighton and in London. Meanwhile, the 
Princess of Wales resided at Blackheath, and the 
profligate life of her husband sufficed to attract to 
her a large share of popular commiseration. News 
filtered slowly to the provinces in those days of tardy 
communication, else the public scandal must have 
roused the nation to dangerous manifestations. 

In 1806, owing to manifold indiscretions of this 
unfortunate Princess, a Commission of twenty-three 
Privy Councillors was appointed, at her husband's 
instance, to inquire into her conduct. She was ac- 
quitted on the charge of having borne an illegitimate 
child, though censure was passed upon her mode of 
life. George III. refused to allow Princess Charlotte 
to be taken out of her mother's custody, but when the 
kindly old King became hopelessly mad, the power 
passed into the hands of the Regent, who forbade his 
wife to see her daughter more than once a fortnight. 
Thereupon the Princess addressed a letter of re- 
monstrance to her husband. The only acknowledg- 
ment she received was as follows, from the Prime 
Minister : — 



J8I3-I4.] THE REGENT'S DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 177 

Lord Liverpool to Lady Charlotte Campbell. 

" Fife House, 28 Jany., 1813. 

" Lord Liverpool has the Honour, in answer to 
Lady Charlotte Campbell's note of this morning, to 
acquaint her Ladyship for the Information of Her 
Royal Highness the Princess of Wales that the 
Prince Regent, having permitted the Lord Chancellor 
and Lord Liverpool to communicate to His Royal 
Highness the Contents of the Letter which they had 
received from the Princess in such manner as they 
might think proper, the Letter of the Princess was 
read to His Royal Highness. 

" His Royal Highness was not pleased to signify 
any commands upon it." 

After the general election of 1812, it was obvious 
that the Opposition had no further grounds for hope 
from their ancient friendship with the Prince Regent. 
He had thrown them overboard, as he never hesitated 
to do anybody who had ceased to be useful or 
amusing to him. Brougham, therefore, who had 
been presented to the Princess of Wales in 1809, and 
who perceived how the sympathy excited by her 
unfortunate position might be made to reflect odium 
upon Ministers, and at the same time to injure the 
Prince Regent, proffered his legal services to the 
Princess. Associated with him was Whitbread, who, 
however little may be thought of his discretion, was 
probably perfectly disinterested and sincere in de- 
siring that justice should be done. Acting under the 
advice of these counsellors, after waiting in vain for 
an answer to her letter to her husband, the Princess 
caused the said letter to be published in the Morning 
Chronicle. The result was the appointment of another 
commission of three and twenty Privy Councillors, 

N 



178 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

who, by 21 votes to 2, supported the Prince's decree 
about the intercourse that should be permitted be- 
tween his wife and daughter. From this time forward 
Brougham, perceiving the means of avenging the 
treatment of the Whigs by the Prince Regent and, at 
the same time, making political capital out of the 
Princess's wrongs, became indefatigable in the cause. 
He and Whitbread drew to themselves the cordial 
support of the Radicals, who waxed indignant with 
the old Whigs by reason of their constitutional 
scruples in taking action against the Regent. Thus 
the schism in the Opposition grew ever deeper; nor 
was it any part of Brougham's plan that it should be 
healed, so long as he should be out of Parliament. 
He wrote incessantly to Creevey about the varying 
phases of the case, which it would be wearisome and 
unprofitable to follow in detail. A few extracts follow 
as examples of the style and spirit of his letters, in 
which the Prince Regent is usually referred to as 
" Prinney " or " P.," the Princess of Wales as " Mrs. 
P.," and Princess Charlotte as "young P." The 
sequence of Brougham's letters is matter for specu- 
lation, owing to his habit of not dating them. In 
some cases the exact date can be learnt from the 
postmark. 



Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey [at Brighton']. 

"Brooks's, 1813. 
"Dear Creevey, 

" Come to town to-morrow for Mr. Prinney. 
Let me console you with the news that the fellow 
was hissed to-day going to Court, and hooted loudly. 
All this is good ... A word or two upon the question 
of peace or war. Canning was down yesterday — 



i8i3-i4-3 BROUGHAM ON THE WAR-PATH. 179 

Bogey* for war — Ld. Grey semi-pacific — Samf the 
only peace-maker. Prinney ill — dropsy, [illegible], 
strictures, &c. — it will do ! " 

"Temple. 

*'Dear C, 

" In order to keep you up in the affairs of the 
Prinnies as they go on, I write from time to time, for 
if I let some days pass it would take too long a time 
at this busy season, when I really have my hands 
quite full, were there no Prinnies in the world. 
Also, this way of apprizing you of things as they 
happen enables you to form a safe opinion by being 
kept constantly informed. 

" The scene at Carlton House is quite perfect : 
there is nothing at all equal to it. I laughed for an 
hour. Of course Mrs. Ffitzherbert] must be re- 
ligiously kept concealed. I have an arrear of things 
which are too long to write, and some things to shew ; 
so these must be left till you come to town. The most 
curious is young P.'s letter to old P. which gave rise 
to all the row at Windsor. 

"Notwithstanding the opening all letters, which 
we at first thought under the Dss. of L. would have 
been terribly inconvenient, things have got back 
nearly into their own channel, for 3''0ung P. contrived 
to send her mother a letter of 28 pages, and to re- 
ceive from her the Morning Chronicle with all the 
articles about herself, as well as the examination. 
Now these, I take it, are exactly what old P. had 
rather she did not see. She takes the most pro- 
digious interest in the controversy, and I am going 
to draw up a legal opinion respecting her case. . . . 
I plainly see it excites no small anxiety, for the D. of 
Glos'ter asked me very earnestly if I knew from 
whence the articles in the M. C. came, and was greatly 
[illegible'] when I told him Yarmouth was the man in 
Courier, which he certainly is. Of course, my helping 
Perry to his law is a profound secret. I told the D. I 
knew nothing about it. He had no right to put the 
question. 

"A strange attempt was made by McMahon to 

* Lord Grenville. 

t Whitbread. The question was the dispute with the United States. 



l8o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

bribe and then to bully the editor of the Star (which 
is greatly in the Pss's. interest). He wanted him to 
insert a paragraph against her. Last Saturday he 
went again, and such a scene passed as I would fain 
send you, having before me the man's own written 
statement ; but I dare not, in case it is sent you. It 
began with enquiries and offers — to know the advisers 
of his paper on the subject of the Pss., and whether 
she had anything to say to it, and offers of paying for 
a paragraph ; and ended with his saying he should 
come again on Monday; and then going to see the 
press, and talking to every one of 20 printers, and 
giving them 2 guinea to drink ! ! We had a man to 
meet him and identify and witness his bribery on 
Monday, and I expect his report. . . . 

" In a few days we must open our batteries in 
form. Sam [Whitbread] has had it out with Sheridan 
at Southill, and writes that he is quite convinced they 
have no case at all. ... I expect to see the Govt, jib, 
for tho' the fire of the outposts is really most for- 
midable, it is distant and scattered ; — that of the City 
is very near and loud, and Prinney is likely to be 
frightened by it. . . . As for little P. in general, it is a 
long chapter. Her firmness I am sure of, and she 
has proved to a singular degree adviseable and dis- 
creet ; but for anything further, as sincerity, &c., &c., 
one must see much more to make such an exception 
to the rule credible. However, my principle is — take 
her along with you as far as you both go the same 
road. It is one of the constitutional means of making 
head against a revenue of 105 millions (diminished, 
I am glad to say, this year in the most essential 
branch of all — excise), an army of ^ million, and 800 
millions of debt. ..." 

" Lancaster, Monday, 1813. 
" You will think it rather cool my not coming to 
town as soon as possible in the present state of 
affairs, but I have two reasons. I think Mrs. Prinnie 
will be insisting on some further measures the moment 
she sees me, and I wish it to subside into an arrange- 
ment before I return. I shall come up as soon as they 
begin to negociate. My other reason is a degree of 
dislike of the whole concern, which has, in spite of 



i8i3-H.] BROUGHAM'S OPINION OF WHITBREAD. l8l 

myself, come over me since the row with the Com- 
missioners, especially on account of Erskine. The 
blackening of Ellenboro' is not sufficient to counter- 
balance this. I can't help thinking the omission of 
the questions venial, as long as the evidence was not 
published ; and then the charge agt the Comms. was 
only their going beyond the inquiry assigned to 
them, and recommending a sort of censure on an ex 
parte proceeding. Which was wrong, 1 think ; but 
one can't help regretting anything which damages, 
not Grenville, but the zvhole Whigs. This should 
always be avoided if possible." 

" Brougham, Sunday, 6 April, 1813. 

". . . Now on this question [that of bringing in a 
declaratory bill regarding the Princess of Wales] once 
for all, do not listen to Sam [Whitbread]. He has 
NO HEAD. Depend upon it he has not. He is good 
for execution, but nothing for council, except, indeed, 
as far as his courage and honesty go, which are 
invaluable, but not of themselves sufficient. The 
idea of the galleries being shut would frighten him to 
death, for he speaks very much with an eye to the 
newspapers. Now my belief is that if a good and 
popular ground for shutting them could be got {as 
this may be inade) a most prodigious step would be 
gained. But, it will be said, why degrade the House 
in this way? I reply, if the House is base enough 
after making a row 3 years ago about its privileges, 
when they were to be used against the people, now 
to yield up everything like the privileges which can 
really serve the people, it deserves to be brought into 
every sort of contempt, and the sooner the people 
quarrel with it, the better. Perhaps you may think 
my desire too romantic a one — viz. to see a whole 
session pass with shut doors. I certainly do wish 
devoutly to see it, knowing the price we pay for 
reading debates ; but at present I am only speaking 
of such a shutting as may produce acquiescence in 
the Bill, which will become necessary should the 
Courts decide against us. While mentioning Whit 
bread, I must say that his two capital blunders in the 
Pss. business certainly don't tend to raise my notion 



l82 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

of his judgt. . . . Pray don't forget to let me know 
what the Mountain mean to do about the Livery 
dinner." 

"20 April, 1813. 

". . . Mrs. p. (a bore which I always thought 
awaited you, tho' I have put it off as well as I could) 
insists positively on your going there to dinner as 
soon as you return. She would have had you meet 
Mrs. Beauclerk there yesterday, but I said you were 
at Brighton. . . ." 

"York, Wednesday, 10 May, 1810. 
"Dear C, 

" I find by Ly. C. Lindsay that there is an 
idea of another letter from the Pss. to Prinnie, and 
that Whitbread has written one. Pray try to impress 
upon him the fatal effects of any more letters. She 
will be called the Compleat Letterwriter and become 
generally despised. At all events, let some time 
elapse and see what they mean to do." 

" Temple, Monday, 181 3. 

"... I have nothing to tell you, except that 
Mother P. certainly goes to the Tea Garden to-morrow 
night, to meet her husband. It was her own idea, 
but 1 highly approve of it on his account ; and as the 
Dss. of York goes, it is fit Mrs, P. should go too, if 
it were only for 5 minutes. The consternation of 
Prinnie is wonderful. I'll bet a little money he don't 
go himself, so that the whole thing will have gone 
off as well as possible. Young P. and her father 
have had frequent rows of late, but one pretty serious 
one. He was angry at her for flirting with the D, of 
Devonshire, and suspected she was talking politics. 
This began it. It signifies nothing how they go on 
this day or that — in the long run, quarrel they must. 
He has not equality of temper, or any other kind of 
sense, to keep well with her, and she has a spice of 
her mother's spirit: so interfere they must at every 
turn. ... I suspect they will befool the above duke. 
He is giving in to it, I hear, and P. will turn short- 
about, in all likelihood, after making him dance and 
dangle about, and perhaps break with his friends, and 



1813-14.] PARTISANS. 183 

put on his dignified air on which he piques himself, 
and then say — 'Your Grace will be pleased to recollect 
the difference between you and my daughter.' 

" I may be wronging the young man after all, for I 
am out of the way of hearing anything. Since the 
last time I saw you, I have only been twice to the 
westward of Charing Cross. Once was to see Lord 
Thanet. He is quite well again, and in high force — 
particularly abusive of Prinney, whom he objects to 
on account of his vulgarity, and compares to the 
Bourgeois Gentilhomme in Moliere — a name which has 
got about, and must inevitably annoy P. more than 
even ' our fat friend.' . . ." 

" Temple, Wednesday [181 3]. 

". . . The cry against Sam [Whitbread] is high 
and, like all base things, higher since he left town. 
. . . The bitterness is among the jobbers and under- 
strappers of the party, who wish to blow up the coals, 
and put an end to the party at once, for reasons too 
obvious. . . . Grey, as you may suppose, partakes of 
little or none of the violence, now the heat is off. . . . 
Fitzpatrick's last words, I believe, were — La piece est 
finie, uttered with his usual cool and determined tone 
to Lord Robert, there being servants in the room. 
He had said immediately before to Lady Robert (who 
was going, and said she should see him again) — ' Not 
in this world ' — from whence your piety will naturally 
derive an inference, by way of admission, of a future 
state. He leaves about ;^io,ooo in legacies. ... I 
thought you might like to hear these particulars 
respecting the end of by far the most clever of the 
quiet class I have ever seen, and the most perfect 
judgt. of any class.* . . ." 

Lady Charlotte Lindsay to Mr. Brougham. 

" Wednesday. 
" Everything went off remarkably well last night. 
We waited at the D. of Brunswick's till we heard 
that the Duchess of Y[ork] was at Vauxhall ; we then 

* General Richard Fitzpatrick [ 1747-18 13], for thirty-three years 
M.P. for Tavistock ; a most intimate friend of C. J. Fox. 



l84 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

proceeded there, and were much huzza'd and applauded 
by the crowd at the door, and also by the people in 
the gardens, which was much more than 1 had ex- 
pected, having considered it always as the enemies' 
quarters. There were a few hisses at last, but very 
few indeed. The Duke of Gloucester escorted the 
Pss. round the walks, and the Duke of Kent handed 
her out and took care of her to the Duke of Bruns- 
wick's house, where we supped. In short, nothing 
could be more right and proper, dull and fatiguing, 
than our last night's adventures. . . ." 



Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey. 

" Holland House, Wednesday. 
". . . Lord Darlington is to marry his bonne amie 
Mrs. Russell, alias Funnereau, this week;* and his 
daughter has chosen Mr. Forester. Neither of these 
alliances are brilliant. Mme. de Stael continues to 
be an invariable topick. The servants at assemblies 
announce her as Mrs. Stale. Her daughter, the 
seduisante Albertine, is very much relished by those 
who know her well." 

" Holland House [no date, 1813]. 

"... I have seen few people and heard no news. 
. . . Lt. Clifford (the Dss. of D.'s son f) is to marry 
Lord John Townshend's 2nd daughter : Ld. Clinton 
Miss Poyntz. The report at Windsor is that Prin- 
cess Charlotte is in a bad state of health — a fixed 
pain in her side, for which she wears a perpetual 
blister ; and she is grown very large and is generally 
unwell. The Duke of York was so tipsy at [illegible'] 
that he fell down and was blooded immediately, and 
whilst the Queen was delivering her warlike manifesto, 
the little Pss. was making game and turning her back 

* They were married on 27th July. Lord Darlington was created 
Duke of Cleveland in 1833. 

t Admiral Sir Augustus Clifford, Bart., C.B., died in 1877. The 
4th Duke of Devonshire married in 1748 Charlotte, Baroness Clifford. 
She died in 1754, and the barony passed to her son the 5th Duke, 
and from him to the 6th Duke, at whose death in 1858 it fell into 
abeyance between his sisters the Countesses of Carlisle and Granville. 



I8I3-I4-] PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT. 18$ 

upon her. . . . Poor Courtenay has had a paralytick 
stroke, and Nollekens the sculptor is very ill from 
the same dreadful visitation. Ld. Lauderdale's eldest 
daughter was 8 days in labour of a dead child, and 
was not out of danger when he wrote." 

The reference in the following is to General Sir 
John Murray, who raised the siege of Tarragona, and 
embarked his troops on the approach of Suchet, for 
which he was afterwards tried by court-martial. 
Wellington's despatch of 3rd July contains criticism 
of Murray's operations, the responsibility for which 
the Opposition sought to throw upon Wellington.* 

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Chillingham, 23 July, 1813. 

"... I think Wellington's observations about 
Murray shamefull : he would have been mad to fight 
20,000 French with 12,000 Spaniards and 4000 English 
and Germans. As usual — Wellington never allows 
an excuse, nor ever enables an officer to execute any- 
thing. He left Beresford at Albuera in the same 
situation." 

" Walton, Thursday night. 

". . . Is it true that Leveson has the credit of 
working the intrigue for Canning ? I was sure, and 
I told Brougham and Whitbread so — that the visits 
of him and his wife to Connaught Place announced an 
intrigue, and that I knew them too well to believe 
that any other motive but the basest took either of 
them there. . . . Brougham must rejoice at the escape 
of his client: however the Canningites are no strength 
to these Ministers, and I look forward to rare fun 
next session. If all these peerages take place, I am 
for a regular attack on the prostitution of public 
honours, and a seriatim show-up of all the new 
Ministry. . . . From what one can hear, the Congress 
will be a pleasant scene for Milord Castlereagh. He 
cannot but be in a scrape ; and Norway, St. Domingo, 

* Wellington's Despatches, vol. x. p. 509. 



1 86 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

the Slave Trade, Poland and Saxony, are rare topics 
for future discussion. Have you read Brougham 
upon Norway in the last number of the Edinburgh 
Review ? If not, do it, as he is very good. . . ." 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"Brougham, Sept. 15, 1813. 
". . . My wound is almost well now, leaving only 
a fine large mark, like a slash, on my head, forehead 
and eyelid. ... I came off extremely well on the 
whole, as you would have allowed had you seen the 
cut, which was such as to send all the people — Bigges, 
&c. — out of the room fainting, except the surgeon and 
Strickland, who showed much skill in assisting him 
to take up the artery. He was in the carriage with 
me, and when taken out was supposed to be cut in 
pieces, from his bloody figure; but, on water being 
applied, the blood was all found to be my property, 
and he not even scratched. . . . Let me, in expressing 
my entire abhorrence of Newcastle — its natives, its 
inns, drives, horses, roads, precipices, pools, &:c., &c., 
say how skilful a surgeon they have in the person of 
Mr. Home, who attended me, and who is really a 
wonderful young man. To be sure he has some 
practice ; for 1 suppose the bodies of half the natives, 
in whole or in fragments, pass through his hands in 
the course of a year. To be out of Hell, Newcastle 
certainly is the damnedest district of country any- 
where to be found. . . . Your account of the Brighton 
festivities is invaluable. I am glad to be prepared for 
the Jockey,* with whom I shall certainly take the 
earliest opportunity of beginning the subject, in order 
to make him admit before witnesses his having had 
his journey to Brighton for his pains, and thus to 
confirm his hatred of P.f ... I beg to remind you 
of my predictions, viz. Wellington's retreat in Novr. 
or Deer., and a separate peace on the continent before 
Xmas, tho' he clearly will never make such terms now 
as he used to do formerly.:}: . . ." 

* The Duke of Norfolk. See p. 50. 

t The Prince Regent. 

X The prediction was not fulfilled. Soult was driven across the 



I8I3-I4-] NAPOLEON ABDICATES. 187 

Hon. H. G, Befinet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Chillingham, 24th Sept., 1813. 

" I have been looking out for a letter from you to 
tell me all the news of the south, and your fetes at the 
Pavilion, at which I conclude you were, being in such 
favour with our magnanimous Regent! In the ist 
place — is it true that Parliament is to be assembled 
on the 4th of November? If so, I am in despair, as in 
town I cannot be, and to be out of it will drive me 
wild. Money, I conclude, is the want, and as I feel 
disposed to have a fight for every shilling, and to state 
a grievance for each vote in supply, I am miserable at 
the chance of the campaign opening without me. To 
be sure, affairs look better on the Continent, and the 
capture of St. Sebastian is of the greatest importance 
to the safety of our army. We grumblers can have 
nothing to say, but the question of expence nothing 
can stave off. . , . To-day Ld. Grey was to have been 
in the chair at the Fox dinner at Newcastle : this kept 
me from the dinner, as Ld. Grey and the principles of 
Mr. Fox have long ago parted company. I looked 
on the meeting as a beat up for political friends — 
as a sort of levee where I shall always be the worst 
attender. ..." 

The year i8i4was one of great excitement, political 
and social, in London. In early spring the Russian, 
Prussian, and Austrian armies entered France, the 
British army having been already established on the 
north side of the Pyrenees since the previous autumn. 
The Allies entered Paris on 31st March; a few days 
later Napoleon abdicated and was allowed to retire to 
Elba; Louis XVI 1 1, was restored to the throne of 
France, and visited London in May, to be followed in 
June by the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, 

Pyrenees on 2nd August; San Sebastian fell on 31st; the battle of 
the Nivelle was fought on loth November ; Wellington went into winter 
quarters early in December on French soil ; Napoleon abdicated on 
6th April, 18 14. 



1 88 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

and other royalties. The proclamation of peace on 
6th May marked the beginning of a series oi fetes and 
rejoicings, which continued at intervals all through the 
summer. Unfortunately, they served to bring into 
harsher relief than before the scandalous relations be- 
tween the Prince Regent and the Princess of Wales. 
The Queen having commanded two drawing-rooms 
to be held in June in honour of the foreign royalties, 
the Princess intimated her intention to appear at one 
of them ; whereupon the Queen wrote to the Princess, 
informing her that she had received a communi- 
cation from her son, the Prince Regent, stating that 
it was necessary he should be present at her court, 
and that he desired it to be understood, for reasons of 
which he alone could be the judge, that it was his 
"fixed and unalterable determination not to meet the 
Princess of Wales upon any occasion, either public 
or private." 

One hundred years have not passed since these 
events, yet what a distance have we travelled in the 
development of popular judgment ! It would not be 
possible for any Prince in these days to trample thus 
upon public opinion, and to treat in this tyrannical 
manner a wife whom it had been proved impossible 
to convict of infidelity. The offence thus offered to 
public morality and self-respect goes far to account 
for the profound apprehensions for the monarchy 
which men of all parties began to entertain in view 
of the great increase in popular power which parlia- 
mentary reform, not to be staved off much longer, 
must necessarily entail. 



1813-14.] TALES OF THE TOWN. 189 

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey [at Brighton]. 

" Holland House, Saty. 

". . . The great wonder of the time is Mme. de 
Stael. She is surrounded by all the curious, and 
every sentence she utters is caught and repeated with 
various commentaries. Her first appearance was at 
Ly. Jersey's, where Lady Hertford also was, and 
looked most scornfully at her, pretending her deter- 
mination not to receive her as she was an atheist ! and 
immoral woman. This harsh resolve was mitigated 
by an observation very agreeable to the observer — 
that her personal charms have greatly improved within 
the last 25 years. She (Mme. de Stael) is violent 
against the Emperor, who, she says, is not a man — 
'ce n'est point un homme, mais un systeme' — an In- 
carnation of the Revolution. Women he considers as 
only useful 'pour produire les consents;' otherwise 
'c'est une classe qu'il voudroit supprimer.' She is 
much less ugly than I expected ; her eyes are fine, 
and her hand and arm very handsome. She was 
flummering Sheridan upon the excellence of his heart 
and moral principles, and he in return upon her 
beauty and grace. She is to live in Manchester Street, 
and go occasionally to breathe the country air at 
Richmond Inn. 

"During the debate on the Swedish treaty, Mr. 
Ward* came into the Coffee House, assigning for his 
reason that he could not bear to hear Ld. Castlereagh 
abuse his Master; upon which Jekyll said — 'Pray, 
Ward, did yr. last Master give you a character, or did 
this one take you without?' Those present describe 
Ward as being overwhelmed, for, with all his talent, 
he is not ready at repartee, tho' no doubt by this time 
he has some neat epigrams upon the occasion. Lady 
Jane has had a return of spitting of blood, and she 
was blooded twice last week ; the pain in her breast 
is very troublesome, and I much fear she is fast ap- 
proaching to an untimely close of her innocent and 
valuable life.f There are reports, but I believe idle 

* Afterwards Lord Dudley. 

t It had been strange if life had long endured in a patient treated 
for phthisis by blood-letting ! 



190 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX; 

ones, of marriages between Lady Mildmay and Ld. 
Folkestone, and Sir Harry [Mildmay] and Miss Thayer. 
Ld. H. Beauclerk is certainly to marry Miss Dillon. 
The Greys . . . are not invited to the fetes at C[arltonl 
House, nor any more of the Opposition than usual. . . . ' 

Lord Folkestone to Mr. Creevey. 

"Aprils, 1814. 
". . . . If you should happen to hear in the world 
that I am going to be married to Mildmay's sister, you 
need not put yourself to the trouble to deny it. I 
have not any pretensions to suppose that Mrs. Taylor 
interests herself enough about me to presume to write 
to her, but I wish you would tell her from me that I 
should have been glad to have had an opportunity of 
informing her in person how immutable with me is 
the power of black eyes. * . . ." 

Thomas Sheridan\ to Samuel Whitbread, M.P. 

[April, 1 8 14.] 

" Bonaparte has signed his resignation — Bourbons 
proclaimed — Victor, Ney, Marmont, Abbe Sieyes, 
Caulincourt, &c., &c., &c., have sign'd. The Emperor 
has a pension of 200,000 per ann. : and a retreat in the 
Isle of Elba. . . . There are to be immense rejoicings 
on Monday — white cockades and tremendous illumi- 
nation. Carlton House to blaze with fleurs de lis, &c. 
The royal yatch is ordered to take the King (Louis) 
■ — the Admiral of the Fleet the Duke of Clarence to 
command her — all true, honor bright — I am just come 
from the Prince. 

"Th. S." 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Thomas Sheridan. 

" Cardington, April 10, 1814. 
"My dear Sheridan, 

" I thank you for your letter, and I daresay 
you will not be surprized when I tell you that the 

* The marriage took place 24th May, 1814. Miss Mildmay was 
Lord Folkestone's second wife, and great-grandmother of the present 
Lord Radnor. 

t Son of R. B. Sheridan. 



I8I3-I4-] THE PEACE. IQI 

Circumstances which have led to, and attend upon, 
this great Event, are such as to enable me to contem- 
plate it with entire satisfaction. 

" A Limited Monarchy in France, with Religious 
Liberty, a Free Press and Legislative Bodies such as 
have been stipulated for before the Recognition of the 
Bourbons, leave their Restoration without the possi- 
bility of Regret in the Mind of any Man who is a 
Lover of Liberty and a friend to his kind. Paris safe, 
Bonaparte suffered to depart, after the experiment 
had been fully tried of effecting a Peace with him, 
upon terms such as he was mad to reject — 'Tis more 
than I dared to hope ! 

" Then the great Example set of the Fidelity of all 
His Generals, and of the Armies they commanded, up 
to the very Moment that He himself gave all up for 
lost and opened his own Eyes to the consequences of 
His own desperate Folly, must surely have its effect 
on the World, and redeems many of the Treacheries 
Men have committed against their Leaders. I confess 
it pleases me beyond measure. . . . God grant us a 
long and glorious Peace. 

" If the Regent had but a true friend to tell him 
that he has only two things to do at home to complete 
the Happiness and Splendour of this Epoch ! * I hear 
He says I am the worst Man God Almighty ever 
formed, except Bonaparte! but I could tell him^ how 
to be as justly popular as Alexander himself.t . . . 
No Murders, No Torture, No Conflagration — how will 
the pretty Women of London bear it?" 

Hoji. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Brooks's, 1 8 14. 

" Dear C, 

"Nothing new. The Boneys & Co. are 
understood to have left Fontainbleau on the road to 
Italy. What a fall ! and what a triumph for sound 
doctrines of freedom ! The Coles % look very low. 

* One was the rehabilitation of the Princess of Wales, the other, 
probably, Roman Catholic Emancipation. 

The Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, at that time in high favour 
with the English Whigs. 

X Tiemey, Abercromby, &c. 



192 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

Their chance of office is at lOo per cent, discount, and 
the Holland Housians are in a sad quandary. Our 
dinner was good and well managed, and a good spice 
of Whiggism. . . . The Duke of Sussex talked very 
sad stuff: his last feat was the following toast — 
' Respectability to the Crown, durability to the Con- 
stitution and independence to the People ! ' He 
talked of the Stuarts and made an odd allusion to 
their fate and the Bourbons. The King of France is 
to make his palace at Grillons. He comes to-morrow. 
... It is pleasing to see so many happy faces." 



Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"Temple, 1814. 

" Dear C, 

" I write to congratulate you on this most 
speedy and compleat, as well as favorable termination 
of the Revolution. I pass over the reasons for ap- 
proving of it as regards France. These are many — 
but I look chiefly to England. We have been work- 
ing day and night (and seldom succeeding) to knock 
off a miserable ;^io,ooo or ;^20,ooo a year from the 
patronage of the Crown. This event cuts down 50 
or 60 millions at once. If we had made peace with 
Bpte., Prinney would have been bitterly annoyed, the 
aristocrats humbled, the ministers (a good, quiet, 
easily-beaten set of blockheads) turned out, and a 
much worse and stronger set of men put in their 
places ; but who could have looked to any real dimi- 
nution of Army, Navy and expenditure? It would 
have been impossible. Now, there is not a pretence 
for keeping these sources of patronage open. Be- 
sides — the gag is gone, which used to stop our 
mouths as often as any reform was mentioned — 
* Revolution ' first, and then ' Invasion.' These cues 
are gone. It really appears to me that the game is 
in the hands of the Opposition. Every charge 
will now breed more and more of discontent. The 
dismissal of officers and other war functionaries will 
throw thousands out of employ, who will sooner or 
later ferment and turn to vinegar. All this will tell 
agst. Govt, and the benefits of the peace The relief 



I8I3-I4-] BROUGHAM WITHOUT A SEAT. 193 

from taxes, &c., will never be able to tell much for 
them, 

"One should think these things evident enough, 
and yet the Cole school, and Holland House above 
all, are in perfect despair. I am, however, glad to 
find Grey as right and factious as can be. . . . Thanet 
is exactly in the same spirit, tho' he expects nothing 
from the folly and moderation of our friends and their 
fear of annoying Prinnie. By the way, Ld. Grey 
dines with Mother P. on Wednesday next to meet the 
D. of Glo'ster, to the no small annoyance of the Coles. 
. . . Pray don't forget that a Govt, is not supported a 
hundredth part so much by the constant, uniform, 
quiet prosperity of the country, as by these damned 
spurts which Pitt used to have just in the nick of 
time, and latterly by the almost daily horn and gun 
under which we have been living." 

"Lancaster, 1814. 

". . . As for a seat in Parlt. generally, I should feel 
that the use of it is nearly gone if the peace is made 
and discussed. Allow me just to observe in passing 
(a subject I don't think I have ever alluded to before) 
the great use of Whig boro's ; for, without any ex- 
travagant pretensions, I can't help thinking it a little 
strange that my being left out permanently is, to all 
appearance, now a settled matter. This is the more 
odd, because Grey is so decidedly anxious for my 
coming in. Were I, by any chance, once again in 
that place, I certainly have some little arrears to settle 
with more folks than one." 



Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Dover St., June 4, 1814. 

"... I have just received a petition from Mrs. 
Mary Anne Clarke, complaining of cruelty and par- 
tiality in her mode of confinement, and stating various 
instances where indulgences have been obtained for 
money. If I do not hear from you that you wish me 
to delay presenting it that you may be present, I 
intend to present it on Monday. We reckon your 
letter received yesterday to be quite provincial in its 

Q 



?94 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

Politicks, and even the House of Commons — all but 
Wynne — seem to think it a case that in some shape 
they must interfere, if nothing shall be done to set 
the matter right out of doors. . . ." 

The correspondence between the Queen, the 
Prince Regent, and the Princess of Wales having 
been sent to the Speaker, was communicated by him 
to the House of Commons, whereupon arose debate. 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"Temple, Monday, [June, 1814]. 
"Dear C, 

"Just as I was going to begin a letter to you, 
entered old Hargrave, as mad as Bedlam, and I have 
been so completely bored to death by him that I can 
scarcely write at all. . . . The Doctor on Saturday 
evening gave notice of the letter being delivered to 
P.* on Friday, but I made, him again apply yesterday 
to know if there was any answer, and the Dr. said he 
had not received P.'s commands to make any answer 
to it. All being safe and right, you see it is fired off, 
and I may add that I was finally decided in favour of 
publishing to-day by the apprehension of Alexr., &c.,t 
coming in a day or two, and taking off the attention 
of Mr. and Mrs. BuU.J I have, moreover, made Mrs. 
P. § go to the opera to-morrow evening, but without 
any row, merely to show she does not skulk. If there 
is a good reception, so much the better." 

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey, 

" Brooks's, Saturday. 

". . . The Kings dine with Liverpool to-day — 
Prinny to-morrow, and with Ld. Stafford on Monday ; 
a review on Tuesday and I believe to Oxford after- 
wards. Alexander grumbles at the long dinners of 
the Regent's. I like the Prussians very much ; they 
are the best." 

* The Prince of Wales. 

t The Emperor of Russia and other foreign royalties. 

X The British Public. § The Princess of Wales. 



1813-14.] THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. 195 

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"June II, 1814. 
". . . The Emperor [of Russia] has as yet returned 
no answer nor returned any civility to the Pss.'s 
message and letter by St. Leger. They [the Princess 
of Wales, &c.] go to the Opera to night, and if you 
were here she would be sure to be well received. 
Why the Devil are you not here ? Brougham will, I 
suppose, certainly stand for Westminster, which will 
be favourable to him in the Cry that will be raised for 
him. You must come and stop as long as you are 
wanted. The Pss. shall not compromise anything. 
She is sadly low, poor Body, and no wonder. What 
a fellow Prinny is ! " 

Brougham entertained the idea of standing for the 
vacancy in Westminster, but Sheridan was already 
in the field. 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"Temple, 29 June, 1814. 
" Dear C, 

"As you may be amused to hear the infinite 
follies of mankind, I write to say that the Whigs have 
just discovered Old Sherry to be ' an old and valued 
friend and an ancient adherent of Fox.' They there- 
fore support him. To be sure, he has ratted and left 
them — he kept them out of office twice — and he now 
openly stands on Yarmouth's influence and C[arlton] 
House, and Ld. Liverpool is supporting him ! , . ." 

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey. 

" 14 June, 18x4. 
". . . The Emperor of Russia sent for Lord Grey, 
Lord Grenville, Lord Holland, Lord Lansdowne and 
Lord Erskine, and had long conversations with all of 
them. Lord Grey represents him as having very 
good opinions upon all subjects, but quite royal in 
having all the talk to himself, and of vulgar manners. 
He says the Emperor was much indebted to his sister 



196 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

the Dutchess of Oldenburg for keeping him in the 
course by her judicious interposition and observa- 
tions. In truth he thinks him a vain, silly fellow, and 
this opinion is much confirmed by what the Austrian 
who is in London now, and who went with Buona- 
parte to Elba, states to be Buonaparte's opinion as 
he (the Austrian) heard him deliver it. It seems 
there is no subject more dealt in by Buonaparte than 
criticism upon people. He said to this Austrian : — 

"'Now I'll tell you the difference between the 
Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. The 
Emperor thinks himself a very clever fellow, and he 
is a damned fool ; whereas the King of Prussia thinks 
meanly of his own talents, and he is a very sensible 
man.' 

" Grey, Holland, &c., &c., agree in their opinion 
of Buonaparte, in that Buonaparte seems the most 
popular person possible with all parties, both 
foreigners and our own grandees. Blucher is a very 
nice old man, and so like your old friend Lord Grey * 
that Lady Elizabeth Whitbread cried when she met 
him at Lady Jersey's. Platoff is so cursedly pro- 
voked at the fuss made with him that he won't accept 
an invitation to go out. To be sure, as Russ. is the 
only language he speaks, I don't much wonder at his 
resolution. They are all sick to death of the way 
they are followed about, and, above all, by the long 
dinners. The King of Prussia is as sulky as a bear, 
and scarcely returns the civilities of the populace. 

" Prinny is exactly in the state one would wish ; 
he lives only by protection of his visitors. If he is 
caught alone, nothing can equal the execrations of the 
people who recognise him. She, the Princess, on the 
contrary, carries everything before her, and had it not 
been for an accident in her coming into the opera on 
Saturday night, whilst the applause of the Emperor 
and King was going on, by which means she got no 
distinct mid separate applause, tho' certainly a great 
deal of what was going on was directed to her. By 
the bye, I called on her this morning, and saw very 
different names in her calling book from what I had 
ever seen before. Lord Rivers was the first narne, 

* The 1st Earl Grey, 



18I3-I4-] PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES. 197 

Lady Burghersh the second, and so on, which, you 
know, is capital. All agree that Prinny will die or go 
mad. He is worn out with fuss, fatigue and rage. 
He came to Lady Salisbury on Sunday from his own 
dinner beastly drunk, whilst her guests were all per- 
fectly sober. It is reckoned very disgraceful in Russia 
for the higher orders to be drunk. He already abuses 
the Emperor lustily, and his (the Emperor's) walzing 
with Lady Jersey last night at Lady Cholmondeley's 
would not mend his temper, and in truth he only 
stayed five minutes, and went off sulky as a bear, 
whilst everybody else stayed and supped and were 
as merry as could be." 

"June 21, 1814. 

" Well, my pretty, I hope you admired our little 
brush last night in the presence of all the foreign 
grandees except the Emperor.* It was really very 
capitally got up, and you never saw poor devils look 
so distressed as those on the Treasury Bench. It 
was a scene well calculated to make the foreign 
potentates stare as they did, and the little Princes of 
Prussia laugh as they did. . . . We have now, how- 
ever, a new game for Master Prinny, which must 
begin to morrow. Whitbread has formal authority 
from young Prinny t to state that the marriage is 
broken off, and that the reasons are — first, her 
attachment to this country which she cannot and 
will not leave ; and, above all, her attachment to her 
mother, whom in her present distressed situation she 
likewise cannot leave. 

"This is, in short, her letter to the Prince of 
Orange in taking leave of him, and a copy of this 
letter is in Whitbread's possession. What think you 
of the efi'ect of this upon the British publick? 

"Since writing the last sentence Whitbread has 
shown me Princess Charlotte's letter to the Prince of 
Orange. By God ! it is capital. And now what do 

* The " brush " was that, knowing the foreign potentates were to 
be in the Gallery of the House of Commons, Sir M. Ridley was put up 
by the Opposition to move a resolution respecting the marriage of 
Princess Charlotte of Wales to the Prince of Orange. 

t The Prince Regent's daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales. 



198 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

you suppose has produced this sudden attachment to 
her mother ? It arises from the profound resources 
of old Brougham, and is, in truth, one of the most 
brilliant movements in his campaign. He tells me 
he has had direct intercourse with the young one ; 
that he has impressed upon her this fact that, if her 
mother goes away from England, as she is always 
threatening to do from her ill usage in the country, 
that then a divorce will inevitably take place, a second 
marriage follow, and thus the young Princess's title 
to the throne be gone. This has had an effect upon 
the young one almost magical." 

Although there is no reference in these papers to 
the scene in the House of Commons when the Duke 
of Wellington was admitted to receive the thanks 
of the House, still it is agreeable to remark that, 
while Mr. Whitbread and his party had not scrupled 
to avail themselves of the difficulties of the cam- 
paign in the Peninsula as the means of bringing 
reproach upon the Government and their officers in 
the field, it was Mr. Whitbread who now objected 
that the grant to the Duke moved by the Speaker, 
viz. ;^io,ooo a year, commutable for ;^300,ooo, was too 
small. 

Three days later a debate, in which Mr. Whit- 
bread took a leading part, arose upon Lord Castle- 
reagh's motion to increase the allowance to the 
Princess of Wales from ;^3 5,000 to ;^5o,ooo a year. 
This was moved and carried in the earnest hope that 
the Princess would carry out her wish to go to the 
Continent, and that she would stay there. The 
removal of this rock of offence to the Ministry was 
by no means to the liking of the Opposition. 



I8i3-r4-] THE PRINCESS OF WALES. 199 

Samitel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Dover St., July i, 1814. 

"My dear Creevey, 

"You will have seen by the papers that 
Castlereagh laid upon the Table on Wednesday 
papers relating to the Princess of Wales's pecuniary 
situation, which were ordered to be referred to a 
Committee of the whole House on Monday next. In 
the evening of Wednesday I received at the House of 
Commons a note from Lady C. Campbell No. i, 
enclosing the note from C[astlereagh] No. 2, to which 
I replied, * I would see Brougham in the evening and 
we would communicate further.' I did see Brougham 
after the debate, at Michael Taylor's, and we agreed 
that the offer was to be refused, and that the mode of 
refusal should be by letter to the Speaker. 

" Yesterday morning before 10 o'clock I had sent 
a note to Lady C. Campbell to say ' that I had seen 
Brougham, that we had agreed upon the mode of 
proceeding respecting this insidious ojfer made in so 
tmhaitdsome a jnanner, and that 1 would be at Con- 
naught House at two o'clock, to submit the result of 
our counsel, in the shape of a letter to the Speaker.' 
At two o'clock I was preparing to set out to recom- 
mend the letter No. 3, which is the production of 
Brougham, when to my infinite surprise I received 
from the Princess the Papers Nos. 4 and 5, to which I 
replied by the Note, No. 6, I then went and found 
Brougham in Westminster Hall, to whom I communi- 
cated the contents. His convulsions in consequence 
were very strong. I then went to Lady C. Lindsay 
who burst into tears upon perusing the papers. I 
then called upon St. Leger, who was thunderstruck 
and mortified to the greatest degree, but he entreated 
me to call upon the Princess ; which I did, and 
found her and Lady C, Campbell together. She 
received me very civilly, and told me she saw I dis- 
approved of what she had done. With the proper 
prefaces and in the mildest tone, I told her that I did 
exceedingly disapprove it ; and that after her commu- 
nication of the night before, I had reason to complain 
of her having sent an answer without having pre- 
viously shown it to me or Brougham, and that I was 



200 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

much chagrined and disappointed at what she had 
done : that the crisis had just arrived, which would 
have put her in possession of all she wanted; and 
that I firmly believed her income would have followed 
on her own terms ; but that the last paragraph of her 
letter appeared to me to have surrendered everything, 
and her words would be retorted upon her whenever 
she wished to assert the rights of her station. She 
said she meant to relinquish nothing, and particularly 
that she meant to go to St. Paul's (for which measures 
had been taken). I told her I thought *it might 
impair the tranquillity of the mind of the Prince 
Regent ' if she were present, and she would be told 
so. We parted by my wishing her success, and that 
all might answer her expectation. 

" You may suppose the effect the communication 
of these matters had upon Sefton, Tierney, Jersey, 
&c. Tierney had been in counsel with us, and was 
quite decided. In the evening I received the en- 
closed 7, 8 and 9, to which I shall only answer that 
when called upon I will advise, but it shall be on my 
own terms." 



H.R.H. the Princess of Wales to Samuel 
Whitbread, M.P. 

{Note No. 5, referred to in above letter^ 

"The Princess of Wales informs Mr. Whitbread 
that she has been extremely surprised at the contents 
of his note. The Princess does not view the offer 
made to her by the Crown, through Lord Castlereagh, 
in the light in which Mr. Whitbread views it. As no 
conditions derogatory to Her as Princess, or to her 
Honor as a female, have been annexed to the fulfill- 
ment of her rights. The Princess of Wales can have 
no scruple, therefore, whatever, in accepting the 
proposal which has been made to her, and the 
Princess cannot expect anything very respectful or 
attentive in the manner of the offer, coming from 
persons who have been at variance with her so many 
years. Considering this as an act of justice, and not 
an act of grace, she has accepted it accordingly and 



I813-I4-] THROWS OVER HER ADVISERS. 201 

incloses a copy of her letter to Ld. Castlereagh for 
Mr. Whitbread's perusal. A refusal to the Crown 
would have made her extremely unpopular. The 
Princess is, besides, weary of all the trouble she has 
endured herself, and been the occasion to her friends, 
and takes the whole blame upon herself by exhono- 
rating Mr. Whitbread from all responsibility what- 
ever as to the issue of the event. The Princess of 
Wales shall never forget the true and sincere interest 
which Mr. Whitbread has on all occasions evinced 
towards her, but there are moments in life when 
every individual is called upon to act for themselves." 



Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to H.R.H. the Princess of 

Wales. 

\Note No. 6 referred to in the above letter.'] 

" Dover St., June 30, 1814. 
"Mr. Whitbread has the honour to acknowledge 
the receipt of the note of your Royal Highness, 
enclosing the Copy of Your Royal Highness's answer 
to Lord Castlereagh, and to present his most humble 
duty to your Royal Highness." 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"Temple, ist July, 18 14. 

" Dear C, 

" I suppose you have heard of Mother P. 
bungling the thing so compleatly — snapping eagerly 
at the cash, and concluding with a civil observation 
about unwillingness to 'impair the Regent's tran- 
quillity ! ! ' &c. This was all done on the spot and in 
a moment, and communicated to Sam and me next 
day, ' that we might be clear of all blame in advising 
it' We are of course fully justified in giving her up. 
I had written a proper letter to the Speaker, refusing, 
which would only have made the House certain to 
give it [the grant to the Princess]. The intelligence 
came before my letter reached her. 

" However, tho' she deserves death, yet we must 
not abandon her, in case P. gets a victory after all. 



202 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

therefore I have made her send St. Leger to the Bp. 
of Lincoln (Dean of St. Paul's) to notify her intention 
of going in state on Thursday, and demand proper 
seats for her and her suite. They are trying to fight 
off, but tho' they may dirty themselves, nothing shall 
prevent her from going. This is a healing and a good 
measure. 

" Again — there is a second letter from Castlereagh, 
mentioning a bill to 'confirm the arrangement of 
1809;' and as this involves separation, it has (as well 
it may) alarmed her, and now she is all for asking our 
advice ! They may make such a blunder, as all along 
they have blundered ; if they do, we are all alive 
again, and shall push it. Say how it strikes you. 

"As for Westr. — it now appears that Aid, Wood is 
only making a catspaw of old C[artwright] * and that 
he counts on his dying, and leaving a place for him — 
the Alderman. He has avowed that he would rather 
see Sheridan, or any court tool, returned than a Whig 
in disguise, viz., me ; and he asserts plainly that, on the 
comparison, 'more is to be hoped from Cart's par- 
liamentary talents than from B.'s — the former being 
greater.' This has opened some eyes — for they justly 
conclude he can't be really speaking his mind. . . . 
I can't help fearing Burdett is doing something, 
but I don't know for certain. Holland House from 
personal hatred [i.e. of Brougham] supports Sherry; 
the Russells and Cavendishes, I understand, quite the 
contrary. ..." 

The next stage in this intolerable scandal was the 
refusal to the Princess of a seat in St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral on the occasion of the national thanksgiving for 
peace on 7th July. 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

" Monday. 

". . . Mrs. Prinny comes into court this day. She 
sent St. Leger to see the Ld. Chamberlain about St. 
Paul's, who wd. not see him. A letter then was written 
to which she got an answer last night. She was told 

* John Cartwright [1740-1824], the " Father of Reform." 



1813-14.] LORD COCHRANE'S CASE. 203 

there was no place for her. So the game is alive 
once more. Sefton is in high spirits, and Sam and 
Brougham are to see her this day, and get, if possible, 
a letter or message from her upon the subject, setting 
forth this new indignity, and I trust spurning the 
money upon such terms. So we shall recover from 
the scrape she placed us all in. . . . What think 
you of Cochrane setting all at defiance, refusing to 
solicit a pardon from the pillory, maintaining his 
innocence, &c. ? — that it is the sentence, not the inflic- 
tion that he minds; and as for pardon, he will die 
sooner than ask it* Burdett takes the field for him. I 
find many people take the field for him as to innocence, 
or at least have doubts, tho' the doctrine is that the 
conviction is a sufficient reason to send him back to 
his constituents." 

"4th July, 1814. 
"Dear C, 

"First as to Mother P.f I was sure of my 
adversary giving some opening ; so yesterday, in reply 
to St. Leger's asking seats. Lord Hertford (cornuto, 
husband, father, &c.) in his own proper person writes 
saying the whole seats in St. Paul's are arranged by 
the Regent, and Mrs. P. can't have one. I have just 
despatched a Dft. of a letter to Mr. Speaker in which 
Mrs. P. takes the highest ground, saying she had 
accepted in the belief of its being an earnest of a new 
system of treatment, &c., and in order to show her 
conduct to the P. was only because she mtist vindicate 
herself, and not arising from any vexatious views; but 
now she finds she and the offer and all have been 
wholly misconstrued, and that her conduct has been 

* Lord Cochrane, afterwards loth Earl of Dundonald [1775-1860], 
one of the most splendid naval commanders that ever paced a quarter- 
deck, was tried for a Stock Exchange conspiracy, and, though undoubt- 
edly innocent, was convicted with his own uncle and one de Berenger, 
who were the real culprits. Cochrane was Sentenced to an hour's pillory, 
a year's imprisonment, and a fine of ^1000. He was dismissed the 
Navy, and expelled from the House of Commons ; but his constituents 
in Westminster immediately returned him again to Parliament. In 
1828, after continuous sea-service under foreign Powers, he was 
reinstated as rear-admiral in the Royal Navy. 

t The Princess of Wales. 



204 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. IX. 

supposed to proceed from an unworthy compromise ; 
and in short, throwing up, on the ground of the treat- 
ment continuing, &c., &c. . . . This is decisive, I think, 
and gives us the game again. . . . However, if she 
refuses to send it (which I fear) we are done, or nearly 
so. I wrote her a long and very severe epistle on 
Saturday, accusing her of everything, &c. She is the 
better for it, and promises, &c. . . . Now as to Westr. 
I hear Burdett really is trying to put down the Major 
and bring me in. Meantime Sherry * talks of W. as a 
close boro' in his family, and he is to have a meeting 
forthwith. G. Byng told me he had declared himself 
for me, and was ready to go from house to house, 
' and by Gad to wear out two shoes in it,' meaning two 
pair. . . . There is a strange backwardness in Sam 
[Whitbread] about Westr. Whether it be that he 
never can be led to believe that there is no occasion 
for anybody in Parlt. other than himself — or that he 
thinks Westr. too much for me — or that he really can't 
feel easy in going agt. Sherry — I know not, but he 
won't speak to any one." 

To the chagrin of the irresponsible members of the 
Opposition, the Princess of Wales, having declined 
the increase to her allowance voted by Parliament, 
left the country in August, for which Brougham 
bitterly blames Whitbread — unjustly, as far as one 
can see. 

"9th Aug., 1814. 
". . . By G — d, Sam is incurable — all this devilry 
of Canning, &c., and Mrs. P. bolting, &c., is owing to 

his d d conceit in making her give up the ;^i 5,000 

—of himself, without saying a word to any one." 

* R. B. Sheridan. 



( 205 ) 



CHAPTER X. 

1814-1815. 

The peace having reopened the Continent to English 
travellers, Mr. Creevey took his v^ife, who was in 
failing health, in the autumn of 18 14, to spend the 
winter at Brussels ; than which, as affairs turned out, 
he could scarcely have chosen a less tranquil resting- 
place for an invalid. 

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey [at Brussels]. 

"Holland House, 23rd Sept., 1814. 

". . . We have all assured Mr. Jeffrey* that you 
and Mr. Creevey will be glad to see him, so do not be 
surprised at receiving a visit from that very dear little 
man, who has the best heart and temper, although the 
authors of the day consider him as their greatest 
scourge. . . . You will thank us much for his acquaint- 
ance, as he is full of wit, anecdote and lively sallies. 
. . . The strange intrigue about the Dss. of Cumber- 
land's not being received is likely to become publick.f 
From the letters I have seen, our old Queen is likely 
to come off second best, as her actions are directly in 
contradiction to her professions ; but all these Court 

* Francis Jeffrey, the distinguished lawyer and judge, and editor of 
the Edinburgh Review. 

t The Duke of Cumberland did not marry till August, 1815. His 
wife was Princess Frederica, daughter of the Duke of Mecklenberg- 
Strelitz, and widow, ist, of Prince Frederick of Prussia, and 2nd, of 
Prince Frederick William of Salmo-Braunfels 



206 THE CREEVEY' PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

squabbles are trumpery and uninteresting in the 

freatest degree, I near nothing of the meeting of 
arliament, and conclude it will stand over Xmas. 
We hear reports of disunion among the luminaries 
who govern us, especially in those at Paris as to the 
subject of France, both as to its limits and its ministry; 
but it is so much their interest to agree, that it will 
not transpire beyond a little grumbling. . . ." 



Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey. 

"Holland House, 17th Oct., 1814. 

" The peace, as it is with some stretch of courtesy 
called, satisfies no one class of people. Those who 
hate France think enough has not been done to reduce 
her power of mischief, and those who feel some little 
sympathy with her from a recollection of the original 
cause in which she engaged, and to which late events 
have in some degree brought her back, lament her 
humiliation, and resent yet more the triumph of her 
enemies. When a male child is born, every woman 
in the house looks an inch higher; and when a legiti- 
mate King is restored, every sprig of Royalty in 
Europe becomes more insolent and insufferable. . . . 
I have, I own, a little tendresse for the Dutch King 
whom you laugh at. It does not seem that the Flemish 
have any. . . ." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Temple, Nov. 24, 1814. 
"Dear Lord Creevey, 

" I beg to begin by informing you that Lord 
Binning, the Canningite, is extremely angry to find 
persons who are not lords getting the title in France 
just as if they were. To learn that this delusion 
extends to Brussels must drive him mad. Next, let 
me notify to you the destruction or doing of Canning 
and Co. — not his character, for no man who can make 
a flashy speech ever lost that, except, perhaps, by 
conviction for a certain kind of offence — but his being 



I 



I8I4-I5-] BROUGHAM ON THE SITUATION. 207 

sent abroad, and on the score of his child's health ; * 
so that Mouldy t and Co. may be gasping, and he can't 
possibly come to their aid without either killing or 
curing his child. He can't do the one, and he won't 
do the other. I am told the Moscovites are ashamed 
of their member, and the result will be their chusing 
Husky,! All this I tell you because you are a good 
hater. You know I care not two farthings one way or 
t'other, and have far more liking — I should rather say 
far less dislike — towards C. than to many of our own 
friends — the little Whigs who ruin the party. 

"This brings me to add, that the Ministry being 
dished over and over again has no effect in turning 
them out, because our friends have lost the confidence 
of the people — a plant of slow growth and almost 
impossible to make sprout again after it has been 
plucked up and frostbitten — for example, by the 
Grenville winter. . , . Meanwhile, Holland House 
being, by the blessing of God, shut up, some chance 
of favorable change is afforded. I forgot another 
event of much account in truly Whig eyes — a young 
Cavendish § is, or is to be soon, added to the H. of C. 
You may expect news, therefore. Perhaps you'll say 
the Govt, will be overthrown. Possibly : but I expect 
that, at the least, the interesting young person will 
divide once in the course of the Frost, if it lasts, and 
that he will range under the illustrious heads of the 
House of Cavendish. . , . As for the big man of all, 
Prinnie, he has been ill in the bladder, on which 
Sam [Whitbread] said — * God make him worse ! ' but 
this prayer was rejected. Young P.|| is as ill off as ever 

* Canning, who had been out of office since his duel with Castle- 
reagh in 1809, was sent as ambassador to Lisbon in 1814. 

t The Right Hon. Nicholas Vansittart, Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, created Lord Bexley in 1823. 

X The Right Hon. WiUiam Huskisson [1770-1830] was Secretary 
to the Treasury in the last administration of Pitt and in the Duke 
of Portland's, but he resigned office with Canning in 1809, In 1814 
he resumed office as First Commissioner of Woods, &c., though his 
views on free trade were not .in harmony with those of the Tory 
Cabinet. He was not returned for Liverpool till 1823. 

§ Hon. Charles Cavendish, created Baron Chesham in 1858 : died 
in 1863. 

II Princess Charlotte of Wales. 



208 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

— no money, sale of trinkets to pay pensions, &c., an 
old lady sleeping in the room, &c., &c. The Party 
are no longer as averse to the subject as Lauderdale 
would wish and Ly. Holland. ... 1 mentioned above 
my Paris trip having been most agreeable. I say, 
after seeing all the rest of Europe from Stockholm to 
Naples, nothing is to be named in the same year with 
Paris for delights of every kind and sort. ... It is 
the place to go to and live at : be sure of that." 

"Temple, 15 Dec, 1 8 14. 

" I delayed writing last Friday in hopes of having 
better news to give you of Sefton, who had been 
dangerously ill of an inflammn. of the bladder. . . . 
To-day came a letter from himself, which is a picture 
of the man, to be sure, but gives rise, nevertheless, to 
much alarm. Hat Vaughan had written to make him 
ask Stanistreet (his ally) about the 'Fortunate Youth' 
hoax, on which the said Hat had a bet. Sefton begins 
thus — 'As I have just had my will witnessed by 3 
physicians, I thought I might not have another op- 
portunity of asking Stanistreet your question;' and 
then he goes on very coolly to give the details of the 
matter. He concludes by saying he had had a re- 
lapse, and been in great jeopardy, and that he had 
lost 140 ounces of blood in five days. This was in 
addition to 40 the first attack, besides every sort of 
discipline — calomel, hot baths, antimony, &:c., &c. . . . 
After such evacuation by bleeding, I know the cursed 
effects upon the system, and want him to have the 
best advice. . . . My own complaints came, I believe, 
wholly from the infernal bleeding I had in that 
country of broken bones and traders and voices — 
Northumberland ; and tho' I bled about a bucket full, 
it was nothing to this late performance of the Earl. 

" I put all private feeling out of the question (tho' 

I don't know why one should, considering the d d 

country we have to deal with), and I say that no loss 
I know would annoy me more at present than his. 
If he was invaluable before, now that everything like 
discipline is at an end he is 1000 times more so. You 
cannot easily conceive . . . how he rallied, animated, 
stirred, supported — in short, did all that a man could 



ISI4-I5-] BROUGHAM ON THE SITUATION. 209 

do who absurdly chose to be silent when he might 
have done great things in speaking. He was once 
or twice even on the point of doing this also, and I 
know must have succeeded, ... I dined yesterday at 
Coutts's. The last time I had that pleasure (Erskine 
being there) a difficulty arose about thirteen persons 
at table ; to prevent which, E. being there likewise 
yesterday, twenty guests were provided ; among them 
Lauderdale and the Marchioness of L.* (the Countess 
of L. being in the Ionian Islands with all his family), 
Warrendert and his wife. I learnt from W. (and L. 
seemed to agree), that Prinnie is in a bad way. They 
have positively ordered him to give up his stays, as the 
wearing them any longer would be too great a sacri- 
fice to ornament — in other words, would kill him. . . . 

"The D. of York dined t'other day at Holland 
House, and was very gracious. Whether any attempt 
at getting ;^ 200,000 to pay his debts will succeed, is 
another matter. ... A breach between Prinnie and 
him seems unavoidable, sooner or later, tho' the D.'s 
discretion will make it more difficult for P. to bring 
him to a quarrel than most people. 

"As for Mrs. P., I never for a moment have 
doubted that a divorce is as impossible as ever. 
They may buy her ; but even that will take time, for 
we were prepared for such a purpose 3 years ago, 
and steps were taken to create delays, which must 
be effectual. However, I don't expect to see the 
Ministers do such an act of folly, not to mention 
the situation of the Chancellor, and Canning, and 
the interests of Hertford House, 

"As the session approaches, it is natural to feel 
anxious for your return. It will be a session of de- 
tached and unexpected affairs, and full of sport and 
mischief, after a dull commencement. . . . Don't be- 
lieve those who say nobody will come up. Every- 
body will. Curiosity and idleness will also make 
everybody attend from 4 to 7 daily,| and when have 

* The allusion is obscure, as there was no Marchioness of 
Lauderdale. 

t Sir John Warrender, 5th baronet of Lochend, and his wife, Lady 
Julian, daughter of the 8th Earl of Lauderdale. 

X In those days the sittings ofthe House ofCommons began at4 p.m. 

P 



210 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

they done more ? . . . Your coming is indispensable. 
I could give so many reasons, that I shall give none. 
You must be over before the 27th Jany. — that is quite 
certain. ... I shall only say everything will depend 
on a little exertion soon after the meeting. When I 
tell you that Bennet almost gave up attendance, be- 
cause Mrs. B. would not allow him to remain later 
than 6 any night, you will conclude that there are 
two fools in the world ; and, strange to tell, one is a 
brother of 0[ssulston] — the other a Russell.* She 
is really too bad. I used to think her a model, till 
marriage brought her out : now she exceeds all 
belief. . . ." 

" Southill, 28 Dec, 1814. 

". . . C. Stuart t will do whatever he can to make 
himself useful to you. . , . He is a plain man, of some 
prejudices, caring little for politics and of very good 
practical sense. You will find none of his prejudices 
(which, after all, are little or nothing) at all of an 
aristocratic or disagreeable kind. He has no very 
violent passions or acute feelings about him, and likes 
to go quietly on and enjoy himself in his way. He 
has read a great deal and seen much more, and done, 
for his standing, more business than any diplomatic 
man 1 ever heard of. By the way — as for diplomacy, 
or rather its foppery, he has none of the thing about 
him ; and if you ever think him close or buttoned up, 
I assure you • he had it all his life just as much. He 
has no nonsense in his composition, and is a strictly 
honorable man, and one over whom nobody will ever 
acquire the slightest influence. I am so sick of the 
daily examples I see of havoc made in the best of 
men by a want of this last quality, that I begin to 
respect even the excess of it when I meet it. I 
thought you might like to be forewarned of your new 
Minister, and therefore have drawn the above hasty 
sketch. ..." 

* The Hon. Henry Bennet, 2nd son of the 4th Earl of Tanker- 
ville, and an active member of "The Mountain," married, in 1816, 
Gertrude Frances, daughter of Lord William Russell. 

t Sir Charles Stuart, G.C.B., British Minister at Brussels. He 
was a grandson of the 3rd Earl of Bute, and was created Baron Stuart 
de Rothesay in 1828. 



i8i4-is.] THE PINCH OF THE PROPERTY-TAX. 211 



Hon. H. G. Be) met, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [at Bnissels]. 

"Whitehall, 2 Feby., 181 5. 
*' Our partys at Taylor's * are very flourishing — 
— the veal tree in full fruit — and I go there every 
night. All the party (tree as well) send there re- 
membrances to you. Taylor is steady with Prinny 
for the session, as he has been told that Py. said the 
other day — 'he loved no man so well.' Is not this 
provoking ? that so good a man shd. be so duped." 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

"Temple, Jan. 17, 1815. 

". . . Liverpool (the town) is all in an uproar 
(indeed I might say the same of the man of that 
name) about the property tax. We shall do them to 
a certainty. Our friends are in much force on the 
American peace and renewal of their trade, and the 
Scotchman (Gladstone) at a woful discount, having 
become odious to all parties. His letters in the 
newspapers boldly denying the receiving a communi- 
cation from Jenky t on the property tax (and which 
he now explains away, I understand, by a quibble) 
are quite fatal with a 'generous and open-hearted 
publick,' who never understand special pleading, and 
are very ready to confound it with lying. Accord- 
ingly, 1 expect to see severe handling at the ap- 
proaching meeting called by a large requisition, at 
the head of which are ' Earl of Sefton and W. 
Roscoe, Esq.' S. will be good on the backbone, and 
the pautriot will have much to urge. Our worthy 
friend, now returned from America, will not be bad 
— and the Pastor tells me * Carey is now in the state 
of a loaded blunderbuss, and it is hard to say whether 
he mow down more friends or foes, but probably 
many of both.' Erskine is K,T.,| and says he passes 

* Michael Angelo Taylor's, a constant rendezvous of the Whig 
party. Mr. Taylor was an importunate candidate for a peerage, 
t The Premier, Lord Liverpool. 
t Knight of the Thistle. 



212 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

the happiest hours of his life at the Pavillion, which 

is like enough, if his w e knocks him down before 

his son as she lately did." 

" Temple, Wedy. 

". . . The only remarkable thing I have to tell 
you is that yesterday arrived a formal annunciation 
of our blessed Lady, the Pss. of Wales, that early in 
May she is to appear and make herself manifest in 
Kensington Palace. I had warned her of her perils 
at Xmas, and she writes the letter to Jenky, 
officially, on nth Jany. This is pretty well for a 
morning cordial to our illustrious Regent. Fergu- 
son, M. Taylor and I t'other day made a party and 
went to the stakes — the Jockey * in high force as 
also was Mister Chairles Moris. The said Jy. begins 
to think the [illegible] blown upon by the great ribbon 
trade in which P. has been dabbling; for he was 
pleased to speak of 'ribbons of all sorts — blue and 
red,' a kind of disrespect not customary with him. 

" I dined with Erskine t'other day in a large party, 
and he seems much in fear of that subject being 
broached. I took occasion to congratulate him twice 
of happy events that had happened since we met, and 
made each time a short pause, so that he expected 
the Thistle was coming out ; but I added — the peace 
with America and Tom's marriage. He was clearly 
hustled about his new honour. Romilly made a very 
good joke about it : he called him ' The Green Man 
and Still,' alluding to his silence in the House of 
Lords." t 

"MarchS, 1815. 
"... I must repeat my intreaties that M yoti can 
at all make it convenient to come even for a fortnight 
this session after Easter, you should do so. Whitbread 
cannot tell you how much you are wanted, because 
he is quite satisfied all is right when he is there 
himself. . . . All our friends are jibbing on the 
Scotch job, except the Mountain. To hear Whigs 
speak for a measure that goes directly to augment 

* The nth Duke of Norfolk. 

t The ribbon of the Order of the Thistle, just received by Erskine 
is green. 



18I4-I5-] THE HUNDRED DAYS. 213 

the power of the Crown in the very worst direction, 
viz. great increase of judicial patronage^ is a little 
spleening. . . . Adam * and Lauderdale talk them over, 
tho' they all know that Adam was a principal means 
of keeping them out of place. This is a subject too 
irritating, by God, to think of What think you, 
too, of Adam keeping his household office about the 
P., tho' a puisne judge? Were I in rarlt., I should 
undoubtedly bring forward a specific and personal 
question upon it. But why does not Folkestone ? I 
hope to God he will." 

The deliberations of the Congress of Vienna, where 
Wellington was British Plenipotentiary, were verging 
upon violent rupture, owing to the anxiety of every 
Continental Power either to increase its own dominions 
or to diminish those of its neighbour. The dispu- 
tants had gravitated into two hostile groups, wherein 
Russia and Prussia, supporting Murat, King of Naples, 
in his aggression on the Papal States, were ranged 
against Great Britain, France, and Austria. Suddenly, 
at the beginning of March, all these disputes were 
hushed to silence in the imminence of common peril. 
Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed in France. 
The wondrous Hundred Days had begun. 

Hon, H. G. Bennet to Mr. Cnevey \at Brussels]. 

" Upper Brook St., 3rd April, 18 15. 
". . . You are at the fountain head of all the con- 
tinental projects. Here we are certainly for war : the 
old doctrines of there being no security for peace with 
Napoleon are again broached, and you hear all repeated, 
which one had almost forgot, of the nonsense of 1793. 
Parties are making on these subjects, and they are as 
you may imagine. Ld. Grenville started furious for 

* The Right Hon. William Adam [175 1-1839], Attorney-General 
to the Prince of Wales and Lord Chief Commissioner to the Scottish 
Jury Court. 



214 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

war, or at least declaring there was no chance of avoid- 
ing it. A correspondence has taken place between 
him and Grey, who is anxious for peace, which has 
considerably softened the Bogey, and now he [Gren- 
ville] declares that his opinions are not made up, but 
that he shall await further information. So much is 
gained by Grey's firmness, who is behaving very well. 
Elliot and the Wynnes and that wise statesman Fre- 
mantle * are more hot, and the former holds as a 
doctrine of salvation that the existence of the French 
power, with Napoleon at the head, is incompatible with 
the safety of Europe : so you see what are to be the 
labours necessary to be accomplished in case the war 
faction triumphs. I have not as yet heard of there 
being any more lovers of war, Ld. Spencer, the Car- 
ringtons, &c., are for peace, and what is more amusing 
still, Yarmouth, who preaches peace at the corners of all 
the streets, and is in open war with Papa and Mamaf 
upon that subject. Prinny, of course, is for war: as 
for the Cabinet, Liverpool and Ld. Sidmouth are for 
peace; they say the Chancellor J is not violent the 
other way; but Bathurst, Castlereagh, &c., &c., are 
red hot, and if our allies will concur and the plans do 
not demand too much money, war we shall have. Sam 
is all for Boney, and the Slave Trade decree has done 
something. We consider here that the Jacobins are 
masters at Paris, and let them and the free press and 
the representative government come from that source. 
Leave them to themselves, and quarrel they will ; but 
war will unite every soul, particularly if upon the 
cursed motives of the high party. . . . However, all 
the world of all parties speak of Ney with abhorrence, 
as his offers to the King — from whom he got every- 
thing, double the money he demanded, &c. — were all 
made with a firm determination to betray him. He 
said, among other things, that he would bring Napoleon 
in a cage: to which the King replied — *Je n'aimerais 
pas un tel oiseau dans ma chambre ! ' Chateaubriand 
has also declared for Napoleon, and made a speech in 

* The Right Hon. Sir Wm. Henry Fremantle, M.P. [1766-1850], 
a Grenvillite. Joined Lord Liverpool's Government in 1822. 
t Lord and Lady Hertford. 
J Lord Eldon. 



I8I4-I5-] BRUSSELS IN 1815. 215 

his favour in the same style of nonsense and blasphemy 
for which the Bourbons had named him Minister to 
Sweden. 

" Most brilliant court at the Tuilleries, and the 
French say 'L'Empereur est la bonte meme.' They 
would say the same of the devil ; but if I was a French- 
man, I should be all for Napoleon. . . . The Guards 
have marched this morning to embark at Deptford for 
Ostend. I consider they will be there in two days. 
The fellows went off in high spirits, as it is known 
here that beer, bread, meat and gin are cheap in 
Flanders. . . ." 



From Mr. Creevey's Journal. 

"Brussels, Sat, April 22, 18 15. — I met this night 
at Lady Charlotte Greville's, amongst various other 
persons, the Duke of Wellington, and he and I had a 
conversation to which most of those present became 
parties. He maintained that a Republick was about 
to be got up in Paris by Carnot, Lucien Buonaparte, 
&c., &c., &:c. I asked if it was with the consent of the 
Manager Buonaparte, and what the nature of the piece 
was to be. He said he had no doubt it would be 
tragedy by Buonaparte, and that they would be at him 
by stiletto or otherwise in a very few weeks. I, on 
the contrary, thought the odds were in favor of the 
old performer against the new ones, but my Lord 
would have it B. was to be done up out of hand at 
Paris : so nous verrons. I thought several times he 
[Wellington] must be drunk ; but drunk or sober, he 
had not the least appearance of being a clever man. 
I have seen a good deal of him formerly, and always 
thought the same of his talents in conversation. Our 
conversation was mightily amicable and good, con- 
sidering our former various sparring bouts in the 
House of Commons about Indian politics." 

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels']. 

"May 31, 1815. 

". . . We, the Mountain, are in hopes the Grenvilles 
are about to part company. Ld. Buckingham holds 



2l6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

very warlike language abroad and is for peace against 
the Ministers, so we are not to be fettered or con- 
trouled ; and this even on Althorpe's motion about 
Prinny's {illegible] the ;^ 100,000 outfit. The Grenvilles 
swear either to vote against us or not to attend. I 
mean one of these fine days to fire a shot at them 
when they are sheering off", and I cannot tell you how 
joyful I feel at the chance of it. You may depend 
upon it the Marquess wishes to be a Duke,* and he 
is looking sharp after Stafford's patent, with which 
Ld. G. Leveson's earldom is soon to come forth ; t but 
I don't think that the Government are at all pleased 
at our division. They put off the debate till that of 
the Lords was over to try the effect of Bogey's speech ;$ 
but it had but little, and so far from it lessening Sam's 
minority, you see we rose from 72 to 92. The Treasury 
Bench thought we might divide 80, but none calculated 
on more. We hope it may tell with the foreigner : it 
does much here. Grattan, after all, was no great thing 
— full of wit and fire and folly — more failures than suc- 
cess in his antithesis, and his piety and religious cant 
was offensive, as, after all, whatever may be its merit 
in an individual, it is only used in a speech for the 
worst of purposes. . . ." 

Enclosed in this letter was the following list of 
"the Mountain":— 



Milton. 


Wynn, Sir Watkin. 


Balem. 


Mallem. 


Plunket. 


Fremantle. 


Pelham. 


F. Lewis. 


Grattan. 


Gower, Lord. 


Baring. 


Calvert. 


Baring, Sir T. 


Knox. 


Wrottesley. 


S. Smith. 


Carew. 


Smith. 


Wynn. 





* The 2nd Marquess of Stafford was not created Duke of Suther- 
land till 1833, six months before his death. 

t Lord Granville Leveson- Gower, youngest brother of the 2nd 
Marquess of Stafford, was created Viscount Granville 12th August, 
1815, and Earl Granville in 1833. 

% Lord Grenville's. 



J814-15] THE SHADOW OF WAR. 21/ 

Hon. H. G. Bennet to Mr. Creevey, 

"Whitehall, June 13. 

" Why, what a fellow you are ! have you not 
received my two last letters that you complain so? 
Sam complains too, and he sends you his respects, for 
you never write to him, and he says you ought to do 
so, for you have nothing to do but to lounge. He has 
not been well — his old attack, but he looks better, and 
is so. I hope soon he will get out of town, and we 
shall have our release from that damned place the H. 
of C, where we spend our time, health and fortunes. 
. . . We all congratulate you at the recovery of your 
senses, as we thought the Great Lord * had bit you, 
and that he, [illegible] and the Frog f had got you quite 
over, and that you really believed Boney was to be 
eat up alive ; but from all we hear from Paris he has 
a great army, and that things are disturbed in La 
Vendee, &c., &c. Yet I put my confidence in the 
Jacobins, and if they act ; all the youth of France will 
come out with them, and then let me see the state 
your Kings will be in. For my part, if I thought they 
[the Kings] could succeed, I shd. be miserable; it is only 
their entire failure that keeps me in tolerable humour. 

"Our warlike friends are more peaceable, except 
the Grenvilles : at least Ld. Buckingham is trying hard 
for office. His own creature, Freemantle, never comes 
near us: the StaleX stays away, too, from the Lords, 
and uses the old language of clogging the wheels of 
government. All this, you will perceive, leads to 
place, and I am prepared for anything — be it the basest 
of the crew. . . . Grey is in the most confounded ill 
humour : Ponsonby goes to the play, and when he 
comes to the House sits on the 2nd bench, and Oppo- 
sition muster in general from 20 to 30 persons, amongst 
whom is your humble servant : no other people make 
a show. Ridley and Monck never miss. Mrs. Cole § is 
doing very well : the young one || factious and violent 
— looking at the coming storm with fear ; for come it 
will, and not long first. It is quite impossible but 

* Wellington. f The King of Holland. % Lord Grenville ? 
§ Mr. Tierney. || Hon. James Abercromby. 



2l8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

that our finances must, if Boney be not overthrown 
this year, give way, and our dividends cease. . . . The 
Loan is taken this day, I hear, at 54, so you see to what 
a state our finances have sunk." 

The agony of apprehension — the scuffle of prepa- 
ration — which swept over Europe during the terrible 
Hundred Days, wheri, regiment by regiment, the 
French army rallied to the returned Emperor, can 
never lose their hold upon the reader of history. The 
dismay among English residents and holiday-makers 
in Brussels, their precipitate flight, and the scenes of 
undignified confusion and panic which accompanied 
it, can never be more vividly or more truthfully 
depicted than in the pages of Vajtity Fair. Still, 
Thackeray wrote from hearsay. Distant though that 
day may be from our own, it has lost little of its 
interest for us of the present. One is grateful to one 
who, like Mr. Creevey, actually witnessed the mighty 
drama, and was at the pains to record his experiences. 
From the moment when, on 5th April, the Duke of 
Wellington arrived in Brussels from Vienna to take 
command of the allied forces in Belgium, it was ap- 
parent that these must act on the defensive, much 
as their commander desired to take the initiative. 
Of the 700,000 troops of which he had written on 
24th March to his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley,* as 
ready to be massed on the French frontier " in about 
six weeks," none were yet at hand. The Russians 
were advancing slowly through Poland ; the Austrians 
had their hands full with Murat in Italy; of the 
Prussians, only 30,000 were near enough to co-operate 
with the Duke's composite array of 24,200, whereof 
but 4000 were British, mostly recruits. The choice 
* Created Lord Cowley in 1828. 



I8I4-I5-] NAPOLEON'S LAST STAKES. 219 

of battle-ground, then, lay with Napoleon, not with 
the Powers. Everything depended upon how soon 
he could make ready to strike. 

He wasted no time. It was not his custom to 
squander that priceless element of successful war. 
Entering Paris on 20th March, he had at his disposal 
in the first week of June a regular army of 312,400, 
and an auxiliary force of 222,600 — in all, 535,000 men. 
By that time Wellington's forces also had been con- 
siderably augmented; but how different was their 
quality from the army he had dispersed in the south 
of France the year before — the army of which he 
proudly said in after-years it was " fit to go anywhere, 
and do anything " ! The actual composition of his 
force in Belgium on 13th June was this : — 



British 

King's German Legion 

Hanoverians 

Dutch-Belgians 

Brunswickers 

Nassau Contingent 

Engineers, Staff Corps, etc. 



31,253 
6,387 
15,935 
29,214 
6,808 
2,880 
1,240 

93,717 



Napoleon left Paris on 12th June to join his army 
on the Belgian frontier. On the 14th his headquarters 
were at Beaumont, about sixteen miles south of 
Charleroi, with his five corps d'armee, numbering 
126,000 of all arms, well within reach of his personal 
command. 

Thus much to show the position outside Brussels. 
Mr. Creevey and his correspondents throw some light 
upon the aspect of affairs within that capital. Doubt- 
less he would have removed his wife from a scene so 
little suited for an invalid, and have joined the stream 



220 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

of migrating English before the French crossed the 
frontier, had not Mrs. Creevey's state of health made 
it the less of two evils to remain where she was. 

First come a series of hurried, clandestine notes 
from Major Hamilton, who had married, or was en- 
gaged to, the eldest Miss Ord, and was on General 
Barnes's staff. 



Major Hamilton to Mr. Creevey. 

" Brussels, Thursday, 4 p.m. [about i8tli March], 

"My dear Mr. Creevey, 

^^ If you will not blab, you shall hear all the 
news I can pick up, bad and good, as it comes. I am 
sorry to tell you bad news to-day. General Fagal 
writes from Paris to say that Bonaparte may be in 
that capital ere many days. His army encreases 
hourly ; and as fast as a regiment is brought up to 
the neighbourhood of Lyons, it goes over to its old 
master. Soult is said to have promised not to act 
against the King, but that his obligations to Bony 
would not allow him to take part against the latter. 
Thus saying, he resigned to Louis the office of War 
Minister, and the man who now holds it said he would 
only do so so long as the Chamber of Deputies were 
in favor with the nation. Fagal, take notice, is an 
alarmist, and I hope our next accounts will not be of 
so gloomy a nature. 

" Yours, 

"A. H." 

" March 20th, 1 o'clock. 

"Bonaparte is at Fontainebleau with 15,000 men, 
every man of whom he can depend upon, because 
every man is a volunteer, and they have risked all for 
his sake. The Royal army is at Melun, consisting of 
about 28,000 men. National Guards, &c., &c., included 
— not a man of whom can be relied on. This is the 
critical moment; for if they allow him to enter Paris 
without a battle, all is over. I feel that I am not acting 
imprudently in thus stating facts, which naturally 



I8I4-IS-] TIDINGS FROM THE FRONTIER. 221 

Mrs. Creevey must be made acquainted with, . . . 
Wherever we may be ordered to bend our course, I 
shall always have it in my power to give you such in^ 
formation as you may see necessary to ask for." 

" March 22nd. 

" There is no news this morning. All communica- 
tion with Paris is at an end, and we now look with 
anxiety for the arrival of Lord Wellington." 

" March 22nd, 11 p.m. 

", . . The unfortunate Louis 1 8th was at Abbeville 
yesterday, and has sent to the General commanding at 
Lille to know if it would be safe for him to go there. 
Baron Trippe has gone off to Lille to ascertain the 
answer. . . . 2000 men still remain with Louis." 

"Friday, 4 p.m. 

"Lam sorry my news still continues bad, indeed 
worse to-day than ever. 'The people of Paris seem 
to think all is lost, and await the entry of Bonaparte 
as a circumstance not to be prevented. Marshal 
Macdonald has acted with the utmost loyalty, but all 
his influence and exertions have been unavailing. His 
men have told him to "go back to the King, to re- 
main faithful to him if he pleases, but that they would 
go over to the Emperor. The troops have refused 
on every occasion to fire at Bonaparte's force, or to 
make any resistance. He has gone to Dijon. The 
Government has no good information, for the very 
persons who are sent to gain intelligence go over to 
the enemy.' 

" Matters are not so well with ourselves here as 
they might be, inasmuch as the Belgians at Mons 
evince a bad spirit. Dorneburg, who commands that 
garrison, is a determined and good officer, and has 
corps of the German Legion near him should cir- 
cumstances require aid. A letter from Lille speaks 
favorably of the good spirit prevailing amongst the 
inhabitants ; but alas ! if the soldiers do not hold to 
their allegiance, what can be expected ? Pray do not 
blab ; for although all this may have come to your 



222 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

knowledge through other channels, yet it would not 
do for me to have the name of a news-giver. 

" In haste, much yours, 

"A. H." 

" lo p.m., Saturday. 

" The only good news is the spirit which seems to 
prevail amongst the people, particularly at Marseilles. 
. . . Everything looks gloomy ; I fear that my dispatch 
of to-morrow will announce Bony to be not many 
leagues from Paris. The big-wigs are now together, 
and I shall have more to tell you at 12 o'c." 

" Sunday, 2 p.m. 

" Old Fagal seems to have recovered very much 
from his fright. He now says Bony is still at Lyons 
■ — that the best spirit prevails throughout France, and 
that affairs seem to wear a brighter aspect. 3000 Dutch 
troops are on their march to reinforce this army." 

" [No date], 5 o'clock. 

" The Prince [ot Orange] is just now returned, you 
shall know what news he brings from Tournay. 

" Dorneberg is a good officer, and has much judg- 
ment and experience. Pie commands at Mons. 

" Halket commands at Courtray ; has a fine British 
brigade and is a gallant soldier. 

"Old Alten has the Cavalry at Ypres, with the 
52nd and 69th British, and 4 of the Hanoverian 
battalions : all good stuff. 7000 Royalists from 
France, first to bleed, are outside the Belgic frontier ; 
and will give us notice, by their running away ; but 
until WE begin to run, Mrs. Creevey need not fancy 
the French are in Bruxelles ; and, for her sake, may 
they never be is the very sincere wish of 

" Yours, 

"A. H." 

" Saturday. 
" Headquarters remain here for the present. The 
Prince [of Orange] brings no news. All is quiet. 
Lord March was sent to find out where the King was 



I8I4-I5-] ARRIVAL OF WELLINGTON. 223 

on the 24th. His Majesty was not at Bruges, and the 
Earl returned. If Lord Wellington comes in a day or 
two or three, how Mrs. Creevey will crow over all the 
world ! For, rest satisfied, if Bony does not push 
to-morrow (which he cannot do) his game for the 
present is up, and a stand can be made on the ground 
we occupy, with the troops hourly expected from 
Ostend, a7id with the Patrone ! " * 

" 26th, 10 p.m. 

"A Russian general arrived this day at Mons who 
left Paris on the 24th. Bonaparte was to review hts 
troops on this day. The General saw no troops on 
the road but one regiment, and it was marching on 
Paris. A General from the Prussian army (Roder) 
has been sent here by Kliest to remain at our head- 
quarters. A great deal of talk, much communication, 
aides-de-camp from the Due de Berri — from the King 
— from Victor ; in short, all parties seem to have lost 
their heads, and instead of getting troops together, 
they talk about it. It is hoped that Dunkirk is not 
yet in Boney's possession. If not, it will form a good 
flanking position in case of Boney not succeeding in 
his first attack on our line." 

Wellington took up the command of the allied 
forces in Belgium on 5th April. There is nothing 
from Creevey's pen until the crisis of the campaign 
was upon Europe. 

From Mr. Creevey's Journal. 

''June 16. Friday morning, ^ past two. — The girls 
just returned from a ball at the Duke of Richmond's. 
A battle has taken place to-day j between Buonaparte 
and the Prussians : to what extent is not known ; the 
result is known, however, to be in favour of the 
French. Our troops are all moving from this place at 
present. Lord Wellington was at the ball to-night as 
composed as ever." 

* Wellington. 

t Writing early in the morning of the 16th, he refers to Napoleon's 
passage of the Sambre on the 15th and the capture of Charleroi. 



224 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

Reminiscences, written in 1822. 

A number of incidents contained in Mr. Creevey's 
letters and journals of this period were afterwards 
thrown into a consecutive form by him, together with 
many not elsewhere recorded. 

" Cantley, July 28, 1822. — I became a member of 
the House of Commons in 1802, and the moment a 
man became such then, if he attached himself to one 
of the great parties in the House — Whigs or Tories — 
he became at once a publick man, and had a position 
in society which nothing else could give him. I 
advert particularly to such persons as myself, who 
came from the ranks, without either opulence or con- 
nections to procure for them admission into the 
company of their betters. 

" The account of Buonaparte's conversation with 
O'Meara at St. Helena, which is just published, is 
so infinitely curious and interesting that they present 
a very favorable occasion to me for committing to 
paper general facts within my own knowledge, more 
or less connected with some of the events to which he 
refers. Most of these facts I have already recorded, 
either in letters to my friends at the time, or by 
occasional journals; but they are all as distinctly in 
my recollection at present as if they had happened 
yesterday. 

"In the autumn of 1814, Mrs. Creevey, her two 
eldest daughters (the Miss Ords) and her second and 
younger son, Mr. Charles Ord, and myself went to 
Brussells, where we took a house for a term. . . . We 
found Brussells full of our London Guards; our 
cavalry and other troops were quartered up and down 
the country. Having spent our winter very merrily 
with our English officers, and others who had arrived 
there in great abundance, about the 8th of March, 
181 5, I think it was, we first heard of Buonaparte's 
escape from Elba. At the time the young Prince of 
Orange was Commander-in-chief of our forces in 
Brussells ; General Sir Edward Barnes was Adjutant 
General of the army, and Sir Hudson Lowe Quarter- 



I8I4-I5-] CONFUSION IN BRUSSELS. 225 

master General. We remained nearly a fortnight in 
great suspense as to what was to be the result of 
this enterprise of Buonaparte. Since our arrival in 
Brussells I had formed a sufficiently intimate ac- 
quaintance with General Barnes to be quite sure of 
learning from him the earliest intimation of any move- 
ment of our army. One of the aides-de-camp, too, 
the late Col. Hamilton, had already formed an attach- 
ment to Miss Ord, which in 1815 ended in their 
marriage. ... It was on the 24th March, I think, in the 
morning, that he came to tell us that in all probability 
Buonaparte had passed the preceding night at Lille, 
and might be reasonably expected at Brussells in two 
days' time, and that we ought to lose no time in 
leaving the place. Mrs, Creevey at this time was a 
great invalid, quite lame, and only to be removed with 
very great pain and difficulty to herself. Upon con- 
sulting with some people of the place, therefore, as to 
the supposed conduct of the French if they arrived, 
and knowing from Barnes that our troops were to 
retire without fighting, we resolved to stay. 

" During the whole of this day — the 24th — the 
English were flying off in all directions, whilst others 
were arriving from Paris; and in the night the 
Guards all marched off to Ath, Enghien, &c., &c. On 
one of these days, I forget which, I saw arrive on the 
same day from Paris the old Prince de Conde and all 
his suite, who went to the Hotel Bellevue — Marmont, 
who went to the Hotel d'Angleterre — Victor to the 
Hotel Wellington, and Berthier to the Due d'Arem- 
berg's. On Easter Monday, I think it was, I was 
sitting at Charlotte Greville's, when the Due de Berri 
came to call upon her, and expressed his great 
astonishment that any English should remain there, 
as Buonaparte was certainly at Lille and would no 
doubt be here on the Wednesday following, and that 
he himself, in consequence, was going to Antwerp. 
. . . We soon found there was no foundation for the 
report of an early invasion of Belgium by Buona- 
parte, and a good many of our people returned to 
Brussells, and other new ones came there. In April 
the Duke of Wellington arrived (I forget what day*) 

* It was the 5th. 

Q 



226 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

at Brussells from Vienna ; and it was the 22nd, I think, 
I met him at Lady Charlotte Greville's in the evening ; 
she having a party of all the principal persons then in 
Brussells of all countries every evening. 

" I had seen a good deal of the Duke of Wellington 
in 1806, and in a very amicable way. He was then 
just returned from India, and [was] brought* into the 
House of Commons to defend his brother Ld. Wel- 
lesley's Indian government. I was Secretary of the 
Board of Controul at the time, so that all Indian papers 
moved for on either side came thro' me ; and this 
brought me very much in contact with Sir Arthur 
Wellesley personally, as well as with Paull, who was 
attacking his brother.* Afterwards in 1807-8 and -9 
1 took a very decided part in Parliament against Lord 
Wellesley, which produced such angry words between 
Sir Arthur and myself that I was quite prepared for 
there being no further intercourse between us. To 
do him justice, however, he not only did not seem to 
resent or recollect these former bickerings, but from 
the first moment he saw me at Lady Charlotte's 
(where he put out his hand to me) till he quitted 
France finally in the end of 1818, he behaved with the 
most marked civility and cordiality to myself and to 
all who were connected with me. 

" The first occasion when I met him at Lady 
Charlotte's was so curious a one that I took a note 
of it when I returned home, and this I now have by 
me. We had much conversation about Buonaparte, 
and the Duke would have it that a Republick was the 
thing which he was sure was to be got up at Paris — 
that it would never come to fighting with the Allies — that 
the Republick would be all settled by Carnot, Lucien 
Buonaparte, &c., &c. — that he was confident it would 
never come to blows. So he and I had a good deal of 

* Among Creevey's papers are many letters from this Paull, who was 
the son of a Perth tailor, was educated in an Edinburgh writer's office, 
and was a trader for some years in India. Expelled by the Nawab 
from the Dominion of Oude, he was reinstated by Lord Wellesley's 
influence, made a large fortune, and was returned to Parliament, 
where he exerted himself to obtain his benefactors impeachment. 
Having taken to gambling and lost heavily, he cut his throat in April, 
1808. 



1814-15] THE IRON DUKE. 227 

joking, and I asked him what he thought the old 
manager Buonaparte would say to this new piece, and 
whether it was with his consent it was got up, and 
whether it would in truth turn out a tragedy, comedy 
or farce. He said he had no doubt it would be a 
tragedy to Buonaparte, and that they would beat him 
by stilleto or otherwise in a very few weeks. 

" 1 retired with the impression of his (the Duke) 
having made a very sorry figure, in giving no indica- 
tion of superior talents. However, as I said before, 
he was very natural and good-humoured. 

" I continued to meet him both at Lady Charlotte's 
and other places repeatedly, and he was always equally 
communicative — still retaining his original opinion. 
1 remember his coming in one day to Lady Charlotte's 
in great glee, because Baron Lories, the Finance 
Minister, had fled from Paris to join the French King 
at Ghent. — ' The old fox,' he said, 'would never have 
run for it, if he had not felt that the house was 
tumbling about his ears.' 

"Then he was always expressing his belief that 
the then approaching fete at Paris in the Champ de 
M[ars] would be fatal to Buonaparte— that the ex- 
plosion would take place on that occasion, and that 
Buonaparte and his reign would both be put an end 
to on that day. So when we knew that the day had 
passed off in the most favorable manner to the 
Emperor, being that night at a ball at the Duke's 
house, I asked him what he thought of things now at 
Paris ; upon which he laughed and seemed not in the 
least degree aiTected by the event. But when on the 
same evening I made a remark about the Duke's 
indifference to Sir Charles Stuart,* our ambassador, 
the latter said in his curious, blunt manner : — ' Then 
he is damned different with you from what he is with 
me, for I never saw a fellow so cut down in my life 
than he was this morning when he first heard the 
news.' 

" The Duke during this period was for ever giving 
balls, to which he was always kind enough to ask my 
daughters and myself ; and very agreeable they were. 

* Nephew of the 1st Marquess of Bute, created Lord Stuart de 
Rothesay in 1828. 



228 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

On one occasion, having been at a ball in his house 
on a Saturday night, old Blucher and his staff came 
over to the town on the next day — Sunday, and the 
Duke sent out instantly to all who had been there on 
the preceding evening to come again that night to 
meet Blucher, and he kept making everybody dance 
to the last. Amongst others, I remember his bring- 
ing up General [illegible], who has since been so 
conspicuous in France, to dance with Miss Ord, which 
he did. 

" Some short time before the battle of Waterloo — 
a fortnight, perhaps, or three weeks — the two Miss 
Ords and myself were walking in the Park at Brussells. 
When opposite the Ambassador's house (now the 
Prince ot Orange's) the Duke of Wellington and Sir 
Charles Stuart, having been engaged in conversation, 
parted, and the Duke joined us. It was the day the 
papers had arrived from England, bringing the debates 
in Parliament where the question is the war. So he 
began to me by observing : — ' What a good thing it is 
for Ministers that Grattan has made a speech in favor 
of the war.' — To which I replied that all Ministers 
were always lucky in finding some unexpected sup- 
port : and then I added the question was a nice 
one. — *A question of expediency,' said the Duke. — 
'Granted,' I replied, 'quite; and now then, will you 
let me ask you, Duke, what you think you will make 
of it ? ' He stopt, and said in the most natural manner : 
— ' By God ! I think Blucher and myself can do the 
thing.' — ' Do you calculate,' I asked, ' upon any deser- 
tion in Buonaparte's army ? ' — * Not upon a man,' he 
said, * from the colonel to the private in a regiment — 
both inclusive. We may pick up a marshal or two, 
perhaps ; but not worth a damn.' — * Do you reckon,' I 
asked, ' upon any support from the French King's 
troops at Alost ? ' — ' Oh ! ' said he, * don't mention such 
fellows ! No : I think Blucher and I can do the 
business.' — Then, seeing a private soldier of one of 
our infantry regiments enter the park, gaping about 
at the statues and images : — 'There,' he said, pointing 
at the soldier, * it all depends upon that article whether 
we do the business or not. Give me enough of it, 
and I am sure.' 

"About a week before the battle, he reviewed 



1814-15.] THE DUCHESS OF RICHMOND'S BALL. 229 

three regiments of our infantry, and three Hanoverian 
ones, in the AUee Verte, and I stood in conversation 
with him as they passed. They were some of our 
best regiments, and so he pronounced them to be. 
As the Hanoverians passed he said: — ' Those are very 
good troops too, or will be so when I get good officers 
into them.' 

" On Wednesday evening the 14th June, having 
had daily rumours of the approach of the French, I 
was at Lady Conyngham's, where there was a party, 
and it was confidently stated that the French had 
reached or crossed the frontier. The Duke presently 
came in and said it was so.* 

"On the 15th there was a ball at the Duke of 
Richmond's, to which my daughters, the Miss Ords, 
and their brother went ; but I stayed at home 
with Mrs. Creevey. About half-past eleven at 
night, I heard a great knocking at houses in my 
street— la Rue du Musee — just out of the Place 
Royale, and I presently found out the troops were 
in motion, and by 12 o'clock they all marched off 
the Place Royale up the Rue Namur. ... I sat up, of 
course, till my daughters and their brother returned 
from the Duke of Richmond's, which they did about 
two o'clock or half after. I then found that the 
Prussians had been driven out of Charleroi and other 
places by the French, and that all our army had been 
just then set in motion to meet them. " The Duke had 
been at the ball — had received his intelligence there, 
and had sent off his different orders. There had 
been plenty of officers at the ball, and some tender 
scenes had taken place upon the ladies parting with 
them. 

" I saw poor Hamilton t that night ; he came 
home in the carriage with the Miss Ords and their 
brother. 

"On Friday the i6th the Duke and his staff rode 
out of the Namur gate about nine,t and we were 

* Napoleon left Paris at daybreak on 12th June. On the 14th his 
headquarters were at Beaumont, about 16 miles south of Charleroi, but 
he did not cross the frontier till the morning of the 15th. 

t His step-son-in-law. 

X Other witnesses say S a.m. 



230 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X, 

without any news the best part of the day. I dined 
at Mr. Greathed's in the Park. ... In walking there 
between 4 and 5, poor Charles Ord and I thought we 
heard the sound of cannon; and when we got to 
Greathead's we found everybody on the rampart 
listening to it. In the course of the evening the 
rampart was crowded with people listening, and the 
sound became perfectly distinct and regular.* 

"Just before we sat down to dinner, Greathed 
saw Col. Canning, one of the Duke's Aides-de-camps, 
walking by the window, and he called him up to 
dine. He had been sent by the Duke on a mission 
to the French King at Alost, and was then on 
his return. He was killed two days afterwards at 
Waterloo. 

"In the evening — or rather at night — Colonel 
Hamilton rode in to Brussells, to do some things for 
General Barnes, and to see us. We found from him 
that the firing had been the battle of Quatre-Bras. 
He was full of praises of our troops, who had fought 
under every disadvantage of having marched 16 miles 
from Brussells, and having neither cavalry nor artillery 
up in time to protect them.f He was full, too, of 
admiration of the talent of Buonaparte in this daring 
attempt to get between the English and Prussian 
armies. . . . Hamilton had seen the Duke of Bruns- 
wick killed at the head of his Brunswickers,t and 
represented the grief of these soldiers as quite affect- 
ing. Two of our young Brussells officers and friends 
had been killed, too, in the action — Lord Hay, aide- 
de-camp to General Maitland, and a brother of Jack 
Smyth's. Upon one occasion during the day, 
Hamilton stated, Wellington and his whole staff had 
been very nearly taken prisoners by some French 

* The action at Quatre-Bras began about 3 p.m. and lasted till 
9 o'clock. 

t The Allies began the action with 7000 infantry and 16 guns. 
Van Merlen's horse, 1200 strong, joined them before 5 o'clock, but 
Lord Uxbridge's division of cavalry halted on the Mons-Brussels road, 
through a mistake in their orders. 

t Their black uniform, with silver death's-head and crossbones, 
commemorated the death of the Duke's father at the head of his Bruns- 
wicker Hussars at Jena. 



1814-15.] THE EVE OF WATERLOO. 23 1 

cavalry.* . . . Hamilton returned to headquarters 
about 12 at night. 

"On Saturday the 17th I remember feeling free 
from much alarm. I reasoned with myself that as 
our troops had kept their ground under all the 
unequal circumstances of the day before, surely when 
all the Guards and other troops had arrived from Ath 
and Enghien, with all the cavalry, artillery, &c., they 
would be too strong for the French even venturing to 
attack again. So we went on flattering ourselves 
during the day, especially as we heard no firing. 
About four o'clock, however, the Marquis Juarenais [?], 
who I always found knew more than anybody else, 
met me in the street and said : — ' Your army is in 
retreat upon Brussells, and the French in pursuit' 
He quite satisfied me that he knew the fact ; and not 
long after, the baggage of the army was coming down 
the Rue de Namur, filling up my street, and horses 
were bivouacked [picketed ?] all round the park. 

"At night Hamilton came in to us again, and we 
learnt from him that Buonaparte had beaten Blucher 
so completely the night before that all communication 
between the latter and Wellington had 'been cut off, 
and that, under such circumstances, Wellington had 
been obliged to fall back and take up another position. 

" It was now clear there was going to be a 
desperate battle. Hamilton said so, and we who 
knew the overflowing ardent mind, as well as the 
daring nature, of his General (Barnes), well knew the 
danger his life would be exposed to next day. He 
returned to headquarters, according to custom, at 
midnight. 

"Sunday, June the i8th, was of course a most 
anxious day with us. I persuaded poor Charles Ord 
to go that day to England. Between 11 and 12 I 

• This happened just after the Duke of Brunswick fell. The Bruns- 
wick infantry giving way before a charge of French cavalry, Wellington 
rode up with the Brunswick Hussars to cover them ; but these also 
fell into disorder under a heavy fire of musketry, and were then driven 
off by Pirn's Red Lancers. Wellington galloped off, closely pursued. 
Arriving at a ditch lined by the Gordon Highlanders, he called out 
to them to lie still, set his horse at the fence, and cleared it, bayonets 
and all. 



232 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

perceived the horses, men, carts and carriages of all 
description, laden with baggage, which had filled 
every street all night, had received orders to march, 
and I never felt more anxiety than to see the route 
they took ; for had they taken the Antwerp or Ostend 
road, 1 should have concluded we were not to keep 
our ground. They all went up the Rue de Namur 
towards the army. 

"About three o'clock I walked about two miles 
out of the town towards the army, and a more 
curious, busy scene it was, with every kind of thing 
upon the road, the Sunday population of Brussells 
being all out in the suburbs out of the Porte Namur, 
sitting about tables drinking beer and smoking and 
making merry, as if races or other sports were going 
on, instead of the great pitched battle which was then 
fighting. 

" Upon my return home about four, I had scarcely 
got into my own room to dress for dinner, when Miss 
Elizabeth Ord came running into the room saying : — 
' For God's sake, Mr. Creevey, come into the drawing- 
room to my mother immediately. The French are in 
the town.' — I could not bring myself to believe that to 
be true, and I said so, with my reasons ; but I said — 
' Let all the outside blinds be put to, and I will come 
in an instant.' — So having remained five or ten 
minutes in the drawing-room, and hearing nothing, 
I went out; and then I found the alarm had been 
occasioned by the flight of a German regiment of 
cavalry, the Cumberland Hussars, who had quitted 
the field of battle, galloping through the forest of 
Soignes, entering the Porte Namur, and going full 
speed down the Rue de Namur and thro' the Place 
Royale, crying out the French were at their heels. 
The confusion and mischief occasioned by these 
fellows on the road were incredible, but in the town 
all was quiet again in an instant. 

" I then sat down to dinner, in the middle of which 
I heard a very considerable shouting near me. Jump- 
ing up to the window which commanded the lower 
part of the Rue de Namur, I saw a detachment of our 
Horse Guards escorting a considerable body of 
French prisoners, and could distinctly recognise one 
or two eagles. I went into the Place Royale 



1SI4-I5-] THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE. 233 

immediately to see them pass, and then returned to my 
dinner. Their number was said to be 1500. In half 
an hour more I heard fresh shouting, and this proved 
to be another arrival of French prisoners, greater in 
amount — it was said 5000 in all had arrived. 

" About this time, in looking out of my window I 
saw Mr. Legh, of Lyme, M.P. for Newton,* arrive on 
horseback at his lodgings, which were next to my 
house; and finding that he had been looking at the 
battle, or very near it, I rejoiced with him upon 
things looking so well, which I conceived to be the 
case from the recent arrivals of prisoners. My sur- 
prise, therefore, was by no means small when he 
replied -that he did not agree with me : that from his 
own observation he thought overything looked as 
bad as possible ; in short, that he thought so badly of 
it that he should not send his horses to the stable, 
but keep them at his door in case of accidents 

"After this I went out to call on the Marquis 
Juarenais in the Park, to collect from him what news 
I could ; and in passing the corner of the Hotel Belle- 
vue I came in contact with one of our Life Guards — 
a soldier who had just come in. I asked him how he 
thought the battle was going when he left the field ; 
upon which, after turning round apparently to see if 
anybody could hear him, he said : — ' Why, sir, I don't 
like the appearance of things at all. The French are 
getting on in such a manner that I don't see what's to 
stop them.' 

" I then got to Juarenais's, and was shown into 
a drawing-room, in the middle of which I saw a 
wounded officer of our Foot Guards (Griffiths, his 
name was, I knew afterwards) sitting in apparently 
great pain — a corporal on one side picking his 
epaulet out of the wound, and Madame de Juarenais 
holding a smelling-bottle under his nose. I just 
heard the officer apologise to Madame de Juarenais for 
the trouble he was giving her, observing at the time 
that he would not be long with them, as the French 
would be in that night, and then he fainted away. 

" In going out of the drawing-room into the 
balcony commanding the Park, the first thing I saw 

* Grandfather of the present Lord Newton. 



234 THE CREEVEY PAPERS, [Ch. X. 

was General Barnes's chaise and four going as fast 
as it could from his own house in the Park towards 
the Porte Namur and, of course, the field of battle ; 
upon which I went immediately to Barnes's to see 
what intelligence I could pick up there ; when I found 
a foreign officer of his staff — I forget his name — 
who had just arrived, and had sent off the General's 
carriage. His information was that General Barnes 
was very badly wounded — that Captain \_Ulegible] 
Erskine of his staff had lost an arm — that Major 
Hamilton * was wounded but not severely, and that 
he thought everything was going as badly as possible. 

"With this intelligence I returned to Mrs. Creevey 
and my daughters between 8 and 9, but I did not 
mention a word of what I had heard, there being no 
use in my so doing. About ten o'clock, however, or 
between that and 1 1, Hamilton entered the room, and 
then the ladies and myself heard from him that Genl. 
Barnes had been shot through the body by a musquet 
ball about 5 o'clock — that his horse having just previ- 
ously been killed under him, the general was on foot 
at the time — that Hamilton and the orderly sergeant 
had put him immediately upon Hamilton's horse, and 
that in this manner, one on each side, they had walked 
these 12 miles to Bruxelles, tho' Hamilton had been 
wounded both in the head and in one foot. Observe — the 
road had been so choaked by carts and carriages being 
overturned when the German regiment f ran away, 
that no carriage could pass that way for some time. 

" Well — Hamilton had put his general to bed, and 
was then come to give us the opinion, both of the 
general and himself, that the battle was lost, and that 
we had no time to lose in getting away. Hamilton 
said he would immediately procure horses, carriages 
or anything else for taking us from Bruxelles. After a 
very short consultation, however, with Mrs. Creevey, 
under all the circumstances of her ill health and help- 
lessness, and the confusion of flying from an army in 
the night, we determined to remain, and Hamilton 
returned to his general. 

" The young ladies lay down upon their beds 
without undressing. I got into my own, and slept 

* Mr. Creevey's son-in-law. f The Cumberland Hussars. 



I8I4-I5-] NEWS OF VICTORY. 235 

soundly till 4 o'clock, when, upon waking, I went 
instantly to the front windows to see what was pass- 
ing in the Rue Namur. I had the satisfaction of see- 
ing baggage, soldiers, &c., still moving up the street, 
and towards the field of battle, which I could not 
but consider as very favorable. Having dressed and 
loitered about till near six, I then went to the Marquis 
Juarenais's, in pursuit of news ; and, upon the great 
court gate being opened to me, the first person I 
saw was Madame de Juarenais, walking about in de- 
shabille amidst a great bivouack of horses. She told 
me immediately that the French were defeated and 
had fled in great confusion. I expressed so much 
surprise at this, that she said I should learn it from 
Monr. Juarenais himself; so she took me up to his 
bed, where he was fast asleep. When he woke and 
saw me by his bedside in doubt about the truth of 
the good news, he almost began to doubt himself; 
but then he recollected, and it was all quite right. 
General Sir Charles Alten, who commanded the 
Hanoverians, had been brought in to Juarenais's late 
at night, very badly wounded ; but had. left particular 
orders with his staff to bring or send the earliest 
accounts of the result. Accordingly, one of his officers 
who had been on the field about 8 o'clock, when the 
French had given way, and who had gone on with the 
Duke in the pursuit as far as Nivelles,* had brought all 
this intelligence to Alten at Juarenais's about 3 o'clock. 

" I went in the first place from Juarenais's to 
General Barnes's; where, having entered his bed- 
room, I found him lying in bed, his wound just 
dressed, and Hamilton by his side ; and when I told 
him the battle was won (which he did not know 
before), and how I knew it, he said : — ' There, 
Hamilton, did not I say it was either so or a drawn 
battle, as the French ought to have been here before 
now if they had won. I have just sent old \illegible'] 
(one of his staff) up to headquarters for news.' 

" I then returned directly home, and of course we 
were all not a little delighted at our escape. 

"About eleven o'clock, upon going out again, I 

* Wellington did not follow as far as Nivelles, but handed over the 
pursuit to Bliicher at La Belle Alliance. 



236 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

heard a report that the Duke was in Bruxelles ; and 
I went from curiosity to see whether there was any 
appearance of him or any of his staff at his residence 
in the Park, As I approached, I saw people collected in 
the street about the house ; and when I got amongst 
them, the first thing I saw was the Duke upstairs 
alone at his window. Upon his recognising me, he im- 
mediately beckoned to me with his finger to come up.* 
" I met Lord Arthur Hill in the ante-room below, 
who, after shaking hands and congratulation, told me 
I could not go up to the Duke, as he was then occu- 
pied in writing his dispatch; but as I had been in- 
vited, I of course proceeded. The first thing I did, 
of course, was to put out my hand and congratulate 
him [the Duke] upon his victory. He made a variety 
of observations in his short, natural, blunt way, but 
with the greatest gravity all the time, and without 
the least approach to anything like triumph or joy. 
— ' It has been a damned serious business,' he said. 
' Bliicher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a 
damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever 
saw in your. life. Bliicher lost 14,000 on Friday 
night,t and got so damnably licked I could not find 
him on Saturday morning; so I was obliged to fall 
back to keep up [regain ?J my communications with 
him.'* — Then, as he walked about, he praised greatly 

* It may seem improbable that the Duke should have made him- 
self so accessible to a mere civilian on such a momentous morning ; 
but there is ample confirmation of Mr. Creevey's narrative from the 
Duke's own lips. In 1836 he described the circumstance to Lady 
Salisbury, who noted it in her journal (unpublished) as follows : — 

*' ' I was called,' said the Duke, ' about 3 in the morning by Hume 
to go and see poor Gordon ' (in the same inn at Waterloo), ' but he 
was dead before I got there. Then I came back, had a cup of tea and 
some toast, wrote my dispatch, and then rode into Brussels. At the 
door of my own hotel I met Creevey : they had no certain accounts 
at Brussels, and he called out to me : — " What news ? " I said : — 
*' Why I think we've done for 'em this time." ' " 

The dispatch was begun at Waterloo and finished at Brussels, 
evidence of which remains in the draft of the original now at Apsley 
House, which is headed first " Waterloo ; " that is struck out and 
" Bruxelles " substituted. 

t At Ligny. 

X Napoleon had detached the column of Marechal Grouchy, 34,000 
men with 96 guns, on the 17th to pursue the Prussians to Namur. 



i8i4-i5-] CONVERSATION WITH THE DUKE. ^^-J 

those Guards who kept the farm (meaning Hugo- 
mont) against the repeated attacks of the French ; 
and then he praised all our troops, uttering repeated 
expressions of astonishment at our men's courage. 
He repeated so often its being so nice a thing — so 
nearly run a thing, that I asked him if the French 
had fought better than he had ever seen them do 
before. — ' No/ he said, ' they have always fought the 
same since I first saw them at Vimeira,'* Then he 
said: — 'By God! I don't think it would have done if 
I had not been there.' t 

" When I left the Duke, I went instantly home and 
wrote to England by the same courier who carried 
his dispatch. I sent the very conversation I have 
just related to Bennett I think, however, I omitted 
the Duke's observation that he did not think the 
battle would have been won had he not been there, 
and I remember my reason for omitting this sentence. 
It did not seem fair to the Duke to state it without 
full explanation. There was nothing like vanity in 
the observation in the way he made it. I considered 
it only as meaning that the battle was so hardly and 
equally fought that nothing but confidence of our 
army m himself as their general could have brought 
them thro'. Now that seven years have elapsed since 
that battle, and tho' the Duke has become — very 
foolishly, in my opinion — a politician, and has done 
many wrong and foolish things since that time, 3^et I 
think of his conversation and whole conduct on the 
19th — the day after the battle — exactly the same as I 
did then : namely — that nothing could do a conqueror 
more honor than his gravity and seriousness at the 
loss of lives he had sustained, his admission of his 
great danger, and the justice he did his enemy. 

" I may add that, before I left him, I asked whether 
he thought the French would be able to take the field 
again ; and he said he thought certainly not, giving as 
his reason that every corps of France, but one, had 

* In 1808. 

t Captain Gronow, to whom Creevey gave an account of this 
interview, remarks : " I do not pretend to say what the Duke meant 
in his conversation with Mr. Creevey, who was truth itself" {Renii- 
nisceftces, vol. i. 212]. 

X Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., 2nd son of the 4lh Earl of Tankerville 



238 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X. 

been in the battle, and that the whole army had gone 
off in such perfect rout and confusion he thought it 
quite impossible for them to give battle again before 
the Allies reached Paris. 

" On Tuesday the 20th, the day after this conver- 
sation vv^ith the Duke, Barnes and Hamilton would 
make me ride over to see the field of battle, which I 
would willingly have declined, understanding all the 
French dead were still on the field — unburied, and 
having no one to instruct me in detail as to what had 
passed — I mean as to the relative positions of the 
armies, &c. However, I was mounted, and as I was 
riding along with Hamilton's groom behind me about 
a mile and a half on the Brussells side of the village of 
Waterloo, who should overtake me but the Duke of 
Wellington in his curricle, in his plain cloaths and 
Harvey by his side in his regimentals. So we went 
on together, and he said as he was to stop at Waterloo 
to see Frederick Ponsonby and de Lancey, Harvey 
should go with me and shew me the field of battle, 
and all about it. When we got to Waterloo village, 
we found others of his staft" there, and it ended in 
Lord Arthur Hill being my guide over every part of 
the ground. 

" My great surprise was at not being more horrified 
at the sight of such a mass of dead bodies. On the 
left of the road going from Waterloo to Mont St. 
Jean, and just close up to within a yard or two of a 
small ragged hedge which was our own line, the 
French lay as if they had been mowed down in a row 
without any interval* It was a distressing sight, no 
doubt, to see every now and then a man alive 
amongst them, and calling out to Lord Arthur to give 
them something to drink. It so happened Lord 
Arthur had some weak brandy and water in his 
holster, and he dismounted to give some to the 
wounded soldiers. It was a curious thing to see on 
each occasion the moderation with which the soldier 
drank, and his marked good manners. They all 
ended by saying to Lord Arthur: — 'Mon general, 
vous etes bien honnete.' One case in particular I 

* Where Picton's 5th Division repulsed d'Erlon's corps in the 
morning. The ragged hedge has now disappeared. 



i8r4-i5-] CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 239 

remember, on the other side of the road near the farm 
at Hugomont, a remarkably fine-looking man reared 
himself up from amongst the surrounding dead. His 
aiguilette streaming down his arm, Lord Arthur 
asked him if he was an officer, to which he replied no, 
but a sergeant of the Imperial Guard. Lord Arthur, 
having given him some drink, said he would look 
about for some conveyance to carry him off (his thigh 
being broken), and apologised for its not being sooner 
done, on account of the numbers of our own men we 
had to take care of. The Frenchman said in the best 
manner possible: — 'O mon general, vous etes bien 
honnete : apres les Allies.' 

" I rode home with Hume the physician at head 
quarters, who said there were 14,000 dead on the 
field ; and upon my expressing regret at the wounded 
people being still out, he replied : — ' The two nights 
they have been out is all in their favor, provided 
they are now got into hospitals. They will have a 
better chance of escaping fever this hot weather than 
our own people who have been carried into hospitals 
the first.'" 

Lord Arthur Hill to Mr. Creevey. 

" Mons, 25th June, 1815. 

"Dear Creevey, 

" The King entered Le Cateau yesterday and 
was very well received. I was sent off from thence 
here with letters from the Duke to Talleyrand, who 
is here, with the news that Nap had abdicated in 
favor of his son. There is a provisional government 
formed. I don't suppose we shall have any more 
fighting. Hd. quarters advanced to-day however, but 
I don't know where to. I shan't be able to reach 
them to-night — roads horrible. Cambray was taken 
last night by storm : the Governor still in the Citadel 
— can't last. Inhabitants illuminated and received our 
troops with joy — Genl. Colvill's brigade. Let me hear 
of Harris and other wounded. 

"Yours, 

"Arthur Hill. 

" My wounded mare is in the Duke's stable under 
care of Percy's servant. Will you visit her?" 



( 240 ) 



CHAPTER XI. 

181S-1816. 

After the stern realities of war, home politics and 
social gossip read flat enough. The crowning victory 
of Waterloo brought no strength to the Opposition. 
There were troubles enough ahead for the Govern- 
ment, arising out of the fall in prices consequent on 
the peace and the thousands of idle hands thrown 
on the labour market following on reduction of the 
forces ; but, meanwhile, the country was aglow with 
enthusiasm for the Government and the army. It 
was when their prospects were at the lowest that 
the Liberals received a cruel blow in the suicide of 
one of their chief representatives in the Commons, 
Mr. Samuel Whitbread. 

Hon. H. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Crcevey [at Brussels]. 

"Whitehall, July, 18 1 5. 

". . . Nothing could be more droll than the dis- 
comfiture of our politicians at Brooks's. The night 
the news of the battle of Waterloo arrived. Sir Rt. 
Wilson and Grey demonstrated satisfactorily to a 
crowded audience that Boney had 200,000 men across 
Sambre, and that he must then be at Brussels. Wilson 
read a letter announcing that the English were defiling 
out of the town by the Antwerp gate ; when the shouts 
in the street drew us to the window, and we saw the 



i8i5-i6.] DEATH OF WHITBREAD. 241 

chaise and the Eagles. To be sure, we are good people, 
but sorry prophets ! The only consolation I have is 
in peace, and that we shall have, and have time, too, 
to look about us, and amend our system at home, and 
damage royalty, and badger Prinny. I will venture 
to say he will long again for war abroad, as we will 
give him enough of it at home in the H. of Commons, 
so I beg you will be preparing for battle in the ensuing 
campaign. Peace we are hourly expecting. The 
[illegible] want to stop the French frontier, [illegible] 
to pillage Paris, and the ladies of the fashionable world 
to massacre its inhabitants. I assure you we are 
very bloody in this town, and people talk of making 
great examples, as if the French had not the right 
to have, independent of us, what government they 
liked best. 

" You will be sorry to hear that Sam [Whitbread] 
looks and is very ill. He has lost all spirits, and 
cannot speak. I hear he vexes himself to death about 
Drury Lane. I am told a bill is filed against him by 
the [illegible'] to the tune of ;^2 5,000. ... I hope it is 
Drury Lane and not bad health that destroys his 
spirits." 

"Whitehall, July;. 
"My dear Creevey, 

" It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell 
you that you have lost your friend Whitbread; and 
though I hardly know how to name it, yet I must add 
that he destroyed himself in a paroxysm of derange- 
ment from the aneurism in the brain. He had been 
for the last month in a low and irritable state. The 
damned theatre and all its concerns, the vexatious 
opposition he met with, and the state of worry in 
which he was left — all conspired together to [illegible] 
his understanding as to lead to this fatal step. On 
Wednesday night the 5th I had a note from him written 
in his own hand, and as usual. He spoke on Tuesday 
in the H. of Commons more in his usual style than of 
late. . , . On Wednesday he passed all the evening 
with Burgess the solicitor, discussing the theatre 
concerns — walking up and down the room in great 
agitation, accusing himself of being the ruin of thou- 
sands. As you may well imagine, he did not sleep, 

R 



242 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XL 

but got up early on Thursday in a heated and flurried 
state — sat down to dress after breakfast about lo, and, 
while Wear was out of the room, cut his throat with 
a razor. When Wear returned, he found him quite 
dead. Is it necessary to say what the blow hs to us 
all? To lose him in any way, at the maturest age, 
would have been a cruel loss, but in this manner — one 
feels so overpowered and broken down that the thing 
seems to be but a frightful dream. To me,;the loss 
is greater than that of Fox, for the active, unwearied 
benevolence — both public and private — of our poor 
friend surpassed all the exertions of any one we ever 
knew. He lived but for mankind — not in showy 
speeches and mental exertions alone, but there was 
not a poor one or oppressed being in the world that 
he did not consider Whitbread as his benefactor. . . . 
I never heard of his equal, and he was by far the most 
honest public and private man I ever knew. . . ." 

"July II. 

"... I am not astonished at Grey's losing his heart, 
as this day he is to attend SirW. Ponsonby's* funeral, 
and at night he is to go down to Southill to attend our 
poor friend's to-morrow. . . ." 

"I2th. 

' ". . . I delay sending this to say that Tavistock 
moved yesterday the writ in the most perfect and 
[illegible] manner : there was not a dry eye in the 
Ho.use.i Wilberforce said he always considered Whit- 
bread as\-the true [illegible'], possessing all the virtues 
of the character, tho' with its foibles> and; that he was 
one of the public treasures. Vansittart deeply regretted 
his loss, and allowed that, when most in opposition to 
them, he was always manly, honest, [illegible] and true, 
and that he was an ornament to his country. Thus 
ended the saddest day I have yet seen in the House 
of Commons. Tierney sobbed so, he was unable to 
speak ; I never saw a more affecting scene. ..." 

* Major-General the Hon. Sir William Ponsonby [1772-18 15] 
commanded the " Union " brigade of heavy cavalry at Waterloo, and 
was killed in their famous charge upon d'Erlon's column. 




SAMUEL WHITBREAD. 



\Tofacc p. 242. 



I3i5-i6.] MISFORTUNES OF THE OPPOSITION. 243 

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels]. 

"Friday, July 14, 18 15. 

" The message I sent you by C. Grey three weeks 
ago must have prepared you for this dreadful calamity 
which has befallen us, though nothing could reconcile 
you to it. Indeed one feels it more, if possible, as a 
private than a publick loss. ... It seems as if the 
Opposition lay under a curse at this time — not merely 
politically, but physically. Romilly last winter was 
oled out of a violent inflammation of the lungs, and I 
think him damaged by it, next winter will show whether 
permanently or not, but at 58 such things are not safe, 
and he continues to work as hard as ever.* Ossulstone 
has been most dangerously ill. . . . The anxiety and 
labour Grey has lately had make one fear a severe 
attack of his spasms — indeed he had one a few nights 
ago, having been on Monday at Sir W. Ponsonby's 
funeral, and having to set off for Whitbread's at 4 the 
next morning. The attack was in the night, and he 
went notwithstanding. 

" I hardly can venture to mention myself after these 
cases, but I have been very ill for 4 or 5 months, hardly 
able to go through common business, and now forced 
to give up the circuit. ... I can only give you a notion 
how much I am altered by saying that I have not made 
such an exertion in writing for three months as this 
letter is, and that I already ache all over with it. . . . 
To continue my catalogue, Lord Thanet has been 
alarmingly ill, tho' now somewhat better; and such 
dismal accounts of the Hollands are daily arriving 
that one of my chief reasons for writing to you now 
is to ask you how the poor boy is. . . . In this state 
of affairs and of my own health, when there seems 
nothing to be done, and when, if there were, I am not 
the man now to do it, you will marvel at my coming 
into Parlt., which I have been overpersuaded to do, 
and which will have happened almost as soon as you 
receive this.t The usual and unchangeable friendship 

* He committed suicide in 1818. 

t Brougham remained out of Parliament after his defeat at Liverpool 
in 1812, until returned for Winch elsea, a borough of Lord Darlington's, 
in 1816. 



244 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

of Ld. G[rey] obtained the seat, but I am not at all 
satisfied that I have done wisely in accepting it, for 
the reasons just hinted at. All I can say to myself is 
that I may recover and be again fit for service, in v^hich 
case I should think myself unjustifiable had I decided 
the other way. But 20 years hard work have produced 
their effect, I much fear, and left little or nothing in 
me. . . . 



Lord Ossulston, M.P.,^ to Mr. Creevey in Brussels. 

"Walton, July 31, 1815. 

". . . Buonaparte still remains at Plymouth, but it 
is expected that the ship which is to convey him will 
sail very shortly. I believe he is allowed to take 3 
persons (besides servants) with him, excepting those 
who are named in the list of proscribed. The general 
feeling, I think, here is that he ought to be placed out 
of the reach of again interfering in the concerns of the 
world, tho' it is difficult not to feel for a man who has 
played such a part, if he is destined to end his days in 
such a place as St. Helena. Seeing the other day a 
list of intimate friends invited to meet the P. Regent 
at Melbourne House — viz. Jack Manners, Ld. Fife, Ld. 
Headfort, &c., I could not help thinking what a strange 
fortune it was by which Buonaparte shd. be at that 
moment at Torbay, waiting his destiny at the Prince's 
hands. . . . Kinnaird is in town. His account of his 
arrest by Buonaparte is that, hearing of the battle of 
Waterloo, he had said in society — 'Now the French 
have nothing to do but to send for the D. of Orleans ;' 
which being reported to Buonaparte on his return, he 
sent to Kinnaird to quit Paris in 2 hours, and France 
in 2 days. Kinnaird upon this asked leave to go to 
Fouche, who told him not to stir, for that in two hours 
he would hear something which wd. surprise them — 
that was Buonaparte's abdication. . . . Whitbread's 
eldest son comes into not less than ;^ 20,000 per ann. 
— so Brougham told me. Whitbread, however, in the 
last year had outrun his income by ;^ 14,000— probably 
the theatre. . . ." 



* Afterwards 5th Earl of Tankerville. 



iSi5-i6.] THE DUKEDOM OF NORFOLK. 245 



Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey. 

" London, Nov. 7, 181 5. 

", . . What chiefly moves me to write is some 
conversation that Ossulston * and I have had con- 
cerning the state of the Party in one material point. 
The Jockey f is gone — you may lay that down. It is 
a question between days and weeks, and he cannot 
possibly see the meeting of Parlt. Baillie says if 
things go favorably he may last six weeks, but that 
he won't insure him for ten days. In short, it is a 
done thing. 

" Now upon your friend B[ernard] Howard's 
succession to this most important publick trust (for 
so I consider it), it is plain beyond all doubt that old 
Mother Stafford | will be working by every means to 
touch him — at all events to neutralize him. She will 
make the young one§ turn Protestant — a most im- 
proper thing in his station ; for surely his feeling 
should be — ' I will be in Parlt, but it shall be by force 
of the Catholic emancipation ; ' and, viewing this as a 
personal matter to himself, he should shape his 
political conduct mainly with reference to it. But I 
fear that is past praying for, and all we can hope is 
that the excellent father should remain as steady in 
his politics as he is: sure to be in his adherence to his 
sect. . , . Now what strikes both O. and myself is — 
that at such a critical moment your friendly advice 
might be of most material use towards keeping the 
newcomer on his guard against the innumerable traps 
and wiles by which he will assuredly be beset, and if 
you intend (which of course you do) to come over 
this session, perhaps it would be adviseable to come 

* Afterwards 5th Earl of Tankerville. > - ■' 

t Eleventh Duke of Norfolk. 

% Wife of the 2nd Marquess of Stafford, who was created Duke of 
Sutherland in 1833, she having been Countess of Sutherland in her 
own right. 

§ Eldest son of Bernard Howard ; became Earl of Arundel on his 
father succeeding to the dukedom, and in 1842 became 13th Duke of 
Norfolk. 



246 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

a little sooner so as to be here before the Jockey's 
death, for the above purpose." 

Creevey, however, continued to live in Brussels 
for the sake of his wife's health, resisting many 
pressing entreaties from his friends to come over and 
rouse the flagging spirits of the Opposition. He 
and Mrs. Creevey received many letters from London 
containing the gossip and speculations of the day. 



Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey \in Brussels]. 

"Holland House, ist Jany., 1816. 

". . . According to the song, 'London is out of 
town ; ' the country houses are overflowing. The 
love of tennis is come so strongly upon Lord Holland 
that he has persuaded me rather reluctantly to go 
once more to Woburn for 3 or 4 days, in order that 
he may play a few setts. The plea which makes me 
yield is that I believe exercise keeps off" the gout. 

"The most violent people here even rejoice at 
poor La Vallette's escape. What an abominable 
proceeding it has been. That tygress the Duchess of 
Angouleme in talking of Madame de la Bedoyere 
observed — ' Elle a ete elevee dans des bons principes, 
mais elle novirrit le fils d'un traitre' — an envious 
reproach from her sterile Highness, who can never 
enjoy the poor widow's maternal felicity. There is a 
strong feeling getting up in the country at our 
permitting the capitulation to be broken, altho' none 
are sorry Ney suffered.*. . . Lady Waldegrave is 
dying of water in the chest. Her death will cause the 
disclosure of the secret whether Lord Waldegrave is 
married or not. ... I want a handsome Valenciennes 

* Such was not Lord Holland's sentiment. Among Creevey's 
papers is a very long letter from Lord Holland to Lord Kinnaird, 
declaiming against the Duke of Wellington, " in whom, after the great 
things he has done, even so decided an opponent of the war as myself 
must feel some national interest," for permitting the execution of Ney 
and Labedoyere. 



i8is-i6.J DISORGANISED WHIGS. 247 

colleretie, either made up, or lace to make it. Remember, 
my throat is thick, and it is to wear over the collar of 
a pelisse. . . . Sir Hudson Lowe has married a 
beautiful, and for him a young, widow. She is the 
niece of Genl. Delaney — quite a military connexion. , . ." 

[No date.] 

". . . The new bishop is to be Legge, the Dean of 
Windsor, [^familiarly called by the Regent ' Mother 
Frump.' . . . Lord Craven embarks with all his family 
in his own yatch for the Mediterranean, giving a good 
chance to his brother Berkeley, especially as he will 
rely much upon his own skill in the management of 
the vessell. He sets off at the already incurred 
expense of forty thousand pounds — a brilliant debut ; 
70 souls on board, including men, women, children 
and ship's company. . , . Lord Warwick's marriage 
with Lady Monson is all settled. It is so advantageous 
to the minor that -the Chancery will not enforce the 
cruel limitations of the malignant will of Lord Monson 
against her. ..." 



Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey \in Brussels]. 

"Temple, Jany. 14, 1816. 

". . . You naturally must be desirous of learning 
what appearances there are of work for the session. 
I augur very well. Whether Snoutch * comes over or 
not, I can't tell ; but in the event of his not coming, I 
have communicated to Grey the wishes of many of 
the party including the Mountain,! that Lord G. 
Cavendish should be our nominal leader, with some- 
thing like a house opened to harbour the party in. 
In fact, a house of rendezvous is more wanted than a 
leader. But if Snoutch comes, indeed whether he 
does or not, our merry men are on the alert, and we 
shall see that no half measures prevail. I really wd. 
fain hope that Tierney and Abercromby at length will 
see the folly of their temporising plans, and will act 
always and systematically as they did during part of 
last session. But nothing must be left to chance, and 

* ? Lord Granville. f The Radicals. 



248 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

— ' speaking as an humble individual ' * — I am quite 
determined (tho' ready to meet them half way for 
peace and union sake) that the game of the country 
and the people shall be played in good earnest — if not 
with their help, without it — by God's blessing. 

"The plan of campaign which presents itself to me 
on a review of the state of affairs and the temper of 
men's minds is of this description. As to foreign 
affairs — to act as a corps of observation and take 
advantage of all openings, not very much courting 
debates on those matters which the country never 
feels at all, and on which recent events tend greatly 
to discredit the Opposition ; but ready always to ex- 
pose the enemy's blunders. E.g., the d d absurd 

plan of the peace, which sows the seeds of war broad- 
cast — the systematic plans of interference, &c. Above 
all, the grievous proceedings of our Ferdinand f agt. 
the very allies we had fought with in his behalf. . . . 
As to home politics — here we should make our main 
stand ; and the ground is clearly Retrenchment — in 
all ways, with ramifications into the . Royal family, 
property tax, jobs of all sorts, distresses of the landed 
interest, &c. In short, it is the richest mine in the 
world. A text has been put forth in the Edinr. Review, 
to which I refer you. . . . Last of all, but not least, 
the proposal of measures and inquiries unconnected 
with ordinary party topics, whereby much immediate 
real good is done to the country, and great credit 
gained by the party, as well as, ultimately, a check 
secured to the Crown and to abuses generally. For 
example — prison reform — education of the poor — 
tithes — above all the Press, with which last I think of 
leading off immediately, having long matured my 
plan. ... It embraces the whole subject — of allowing 
the truth to be given in evidence — limiting the ex officio 
powers, both by filing informations and other privileges 
possessed by the Crown, and abolishing special juries 
in cases of libel, or rather misdemeanour generally. . . . 
But the material point is — won't you come over to our 
assistance? You are more wanted than my regard 

* A sarcastic allusion to Tierney's style in speaking, 
t King Ferdinand VII., who was availing himself of his restoration 
to the throne of Spain to indulge in harsh and tyrannical despotism. 



i8i5-i6.] BROUGHAM STARTLES HIS FRIENDS. 249 

for your modesty will allow me to say. Really you 
must come. . . . There are many uncomfortable things, 
beside the dreadful one of our irreparable loss of poor 
Sam [Whitbread] — now to be really felt. Nothing, 
for instance, can be more unpropitious than the plan 
of carrying on the party by a coterie at Lady Holland's 
elbow, which cannot be submitted to for a moment, 
even, I shd. think, by those who belong to her coterie ; 
at least I know no one but the Coles, Horner* and the 
Pope t (who are of her household) who can bear it. 
Do, then, let us hear that you mean to come over. . . ." 

The following refers to the speech on the Treaty of 
Paris, whereby, on 9th February, Brougham marked 
his return to the House of Commons. 



Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [in Brussels']. 

"9th Feb., 1 8 16. 

••. . . I have often marvelled at the want of sense, 
discretion, judgment and common sense that we see 
so frequently accompany the most brilliant talents, 
but damn me if I ever saw such an instance as that I 
have just witnessed in your friend Brougham. By 
Heaven ! he has uttered a speech which, for power of 
speaking, surpassed anything you ever heard, and by 
which he has damn'd himself past redemption. You 
know what my opinion of him has always been : I 
have always thought he had not much sound sense nor 
too much political integrity, but he has outstripped 
any notion I could form of indiscretion ; and as to his 
politicks, they are, in my humble opinion, of no 
sterling substance (but that between ourselves). He 
has been damaging himself daily, but to-night there is 
not a single fellow that is not saying what a damn'd 
impudent speech that of Brougham's — four or five 
driven away — even Burdett says it was too much. 
He could not have roared louder if a file of soldiers 
had come in and pushed the Speaker out of his chair. 
Where the devil a fellow could get such lungs and 

* Francis Horner, M.P. [1778-1817]. 
fReference obscure. 



250 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

such a flow of jaw upon such an occasion as this 
surpasses my imagination. 

"I was sitting in the gallery by myself, and he 
made my head spin in such a style I thought I shd. 
tumble over. He quite overcame one's understanding 
for a time ; but when I recovered, I began to think — 
this will never do — impossible — I will go down and 
see what other lads think of it : perhaps my nerves 
are a little too sensitive. I soon found, however, that 
everybody was struck in the same way, and even more. 
Now, when I say that he has damaged himself past 
redemption, I mean as a man aspiring to be Leader, 
for to that his ambition aspired, and for that he is 
DONE now. By Heaven ! you never saw men so chop- 
fallen as Ministers — Castlereagh beyond belief, I see 
it in every line of his face. They wd. have been 
beaten to-night, I do believe, again. Brougham has 
put them up 20 per cent. ; that is to say, by inducing 
people more to support them to keep [the] Opposition 
out, just as they were supported upon [the] Walcheren 
business to keep us out. Our fellows all run the 
savage too keen for the game to succeed in bagging 
it. There is .never more skill necessary than when 
the fox is in view. They are for running in upon him 
at once, and they will run a chance of being totally 
thrown out in the attempt. They fought the Property 
Tax well, though it was done out of doors completely 
Glorious victory that ! If you are not set out, come 
directly ; we shall have a famous session. ... It is a 
pretty tight fitt for me, but ruin overwhelms the 
farmers. I feel convinced a national bankruptcy will 
be the consequence. I declare I believe it nrmly. I 
shall drive at the whole of the Sinking Fund. ... I 
have not any hopes of Midsummer rents, and the 
generality of landowners will be minus the best part 
of their interest, without a wonderful alteration. . . ." 



Mr. J. Whishaw, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Lincoln's Inn, Feb. loth, 1816. 

". . . We have had two distinguished foreigners 
for some time in London — General de Flahaut and 
Genl. Sebastiani. The former was one of Napoleon's 



i8i5-i6.] WHO SHALL LEAD THE WHIGS? 25 1 

chief favourites, and is the reputed son of Talleyrand 
by the present Madame de Souza, formerly Madame 
de Flahaut. He does not inherit the talents of his 
parents, but is a handsome, accomplished and very 
agreeable officer, a flattering specimen of the manners 
of the Imperial Court, which assuredly could not 
boast of many such ornaments. Sebastiani is nearly 
the reverse of all these, with somewhat of an air of 
pedantry and solemn importance, of which you may 
recollect some traits in his famous dispatch. It is 
a little curious to sit at table with a person formerly 
so much talked of, and who contributed so much to 
the war of 1803. You may remember that he was one 
of Pitt's principal topics on that occasion. . . ." 



Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey \iit Brussels]. 

"House of Commons, Feb. 17, 1816. 

". . . As to the general proceedings of the Opposi- 
tion, I can say little. There is no superior mind 
amongst us ; great power of speaking, faculty of 
perplexing, irritation and complaints, but no super- 
eminent power to strike out a line of policy, and to 
command the confidence of the country. Brougham 
has shown his powers rather successfully, and ex- 
hibits some prudence in his plans of attack ; but I 
cannot discern that superiority of judgment and of 
view (if I may so express myself) which is the grand 
desideratum. Tierney is as expert, narrow and wrong 
as ever; Ponsonby as inefficient; Horner as sonorous 
and eloquent, I must say, but I cannot see anything in 
him, say what they will, though he certainly speaks 
powerfully. A little honest, excellent party are as 
warm as ever, and only want a good leader to be 
admirable. Grenvilles and Foxites splitting — all 
manner of people going their own way. As to foreign 
policy I came to a conclusion that the Bourbons 
cannot keep their place, and that their proceedings 
are abominable, as I told you in a letter from Paris ; 
and then what may happen no man can calculate. If 
they had any wisdom or firmness, they were safe, but 
they mvtst kick the thing over. 



252 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

" In regard to our internal — Agriculture, &c., is 
getting into a state of Despair absolutely and distrac- 
tion. ... I assure you the landed people are getting 
desperate; the universality of ruin among them, or 
distress bordering on it, is absolutely unjDarallel'd, and 
at such a moment the sinking fund is not to be 
TOUCHED for the world, says Horner — no not a shilling 
of it : and yet — taxes to be taken off, rents to come 
down, cheap corn, cheap labour — how can a man talk 
of such IMPOSSIBILITIES ? The interests of all debts and 
sinking fund together amount to ;^43,ooo,ooo 
Establishment 29,000,000 

72,000,000 • 

Now, cut the Establishment ever so low, we shall 
have four times as much to raise as before the war. 
It is not to be done out of the same rents, &c., &c. It 
is absolute madness to talk of it. . . . By the bye — 
there never was a moment for the exertion of yr. 
talents in the job-oversetting way, and fighting every 
shilling of expenditure. This is the time, never before 
equalled. They cannot resist on these points, and the 
carrying them is valuable beyond measure, prospectively 
as well as immediately. Whenever you blow one 
jobb fairly out of the water, it presents a hundred 
others, and this is the moment ! " 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey \in Brussels]. 

"Temple, Thursday [May, 1816]. 
"Dear C, 

"I think it better to trust this to the post 

than to any of their d d bags. [Here follow some 

minute details concerning Creevey's seat for Thetford, 
which he seemed to be in some danger of losing, 
owing to changes of plan on the part of the Duke of 
Norfolk and Lord Petre, who had the disposal there- 
of]. . . . All I desire is that you put me personally 
wholly out of your view. I am worked to death with 
business, and, for my own comfort, care little whether 
I remain out this session or not. The labour would 



i8i5-i6.] BROUGHAM'S VIEWS. 253 

be a set off agt. the pleasure of revenging myself agt. 
certain folks, and even the sweets of that revenge 
would be dashed with bitterness, for I foresee a 
rupture with Grey as by no means an unlikely result 
of doing my duty and taking my swing. We have 
lately had rather an approach to that point, in con- 
sequence of my urgency agt. Adam's job, Lauderdale's 
general jobbery and other tender points, including the 
Cole faction, and their getting round him (G.). The 
Whigs (as I hold) are on the eve of great damage 
from the said jobs, and I conceived a warning to be 
necessary, with a notice that the Mountain and the 
folks out of doors were resolved to fire on the party 
if it flinched. Some very unpleasant things have 
passed, and the discussion is only interrupted by his 
child's death. Now — come when I may into Parlt, it 
must be wholly opposed to the Coles, who have a 
lamentable hold over his mind. ... A Westminster 
vacancy would be awkward; on the other hand, a 
Liverpool vacancy would be still more so, were I out 
of Parlt. The merry men are all up, and I should 
inevitably be dragged into the scrape. There are 
overtures from both parties — Gladstone * would sup- 
port a moderate Whig — with us; the Corporation and 
Gascoigne would prefer a Mountaineer as most agt. 
Canning and favorable to their undivided jobbery. 
That we may put in a man is clear, but I really cannot 
give time enough to the place. This matter concerns 
you as well as myself, but then if you remain out of 
the way for two sessions, it would not be easy to bring 
you in. Moreover, if you take Liverpool and quit 
your present hold you can't so well resume it in case 
of accident. ... I have written a hash of a letter, 
without giving an opinion, having really none to give, 
and wishing to leave you to yourself. You alone can 
decide. ... I have served Prinny with a formal notice 
from his wife that in May she returns to Kensington 
Palace. . . ." 

* John Gladstone of Liverpool, created a baronet in 1846, a 
leading Tory in that town, and father of the late Right Hon. W. E. 
Gladstone. 



254 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI, 

" 1816. 

" If Mrs. C. can possibly let you come for a 
few weeks, for God's sake do come ! It is morally 
certain you can come in for L'pool. ... If you don't 
come in there, you are out altogether, with some other 
good men — as Mackintosh, Ossulston, &c., and, for 
anything I know to the contrary, myself For who 
can answer for a county like Westmorland, where 
there has been no contest for 50 years ? and where I 
have all the parsons, justices, attorneys, and nearly all 
the resident gentry (few enough, thank God ! and vile 
enough) leagued agt, me, besides the whole force of 
the Government. The spirit of the freeholders, to be 
sure, is wonderful, and in the end we must beat the 
villains. Govt, complain of Lfonsdale] for getting 
them into it, and he complains of them for not dissolv- 
ing. My satisfaction is that he is now bleeding at 
every pore — all the houses open — all the agents 
running up bills — all the manors shot over by any- 
body who pleases." 



Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey. 

" Holland House, 21st May, 1816. 

". . . Lord Kinnaird carried over the singular libel 
published by Lady C. Lamb against her family and 
friends.* It is a plaidoyer against her husband ad- 
dressed to the religious and methodistical part of the 
community, accusing him of having overset her reli- 
gious and moral (!) principles by teaching her doctrines 
of impiety, &c. The outlines of few of her characters 
are portraits, but the amplissage and traits are exact. 
Lady Morganet is a twofold being — Dss. of Devonshire 
and her mother : Lady Augusta Lady Jersey and Lady 
Collier : Sophia Lady Granville, jwho had 6 years ago 
a passion for working fine embroidery, and she marks 

* Lady Caroline Ponsonby [1785-1828], only daughter of the 3rd 
Earl of Bessborough, married in 1805 the Hon. W. Lamb, afterwards 
Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister, but was separated from him 
in 1825. Glenarvon, the romance referred to in the text, was pub- 
lished anonymously in 18 16, and reissued in 1865 under the title of 
The Fatal Passion. 



i8is-i6.] A LADY'S LETTER. 255 

most atrociously her marriage with Lord Granville. 
Lady Mandeville is Ly. Oxford : Buchanan is Sir 
Godfrey Webster : Glenarvon and Vivian are of course 
Lord Byron. Lady Frances Webster is sketched and 
some others slightly. Lady Melbourne is represented 
as bigotted and vulgar. The words about Mr. Lamb 
are encomiastick, but the facts are against him, as she 
insidiously censures his not fighting a duel which her 
fictitious husband does. The bonne-bouche I have 
reserved for the last — myself. Where every ridicule, 
folly and infirmity (my not being able from malady to 
move about much) is portrayed. The charge against 
more essential qualities is, I trust and believe, a 
fiction ; at least an uninterrupted friendship and inti- 
macy of 25 years with herself and family might induce 
me to suppose it. The work is a strange farrago, 
and only curious from containing some of Lord Byron's 
genuine letters — the last, in which he rejects her love 
and implores an end to their connexion, directed and 
sealed by Lady Oxford, is a most astonishing perform- 
ance to publish. There is not much originality, as 
the jokes against me for my love of aisances and com- 
forts she has heard laughed at by myself and coterie 
at my own fireside by years. The invasion of Ireland 
is only our own joke that when we were going out of 
Bruxelles with such a cavalcade the inhabitants might 
suppose we were a part of the Irish Army rallied. 
The dead poet is Mr. Ward's joke at Rogers having 
cheated the coroner. I am sorry to see the Melbourne 
family so miserable about it. Lady Cowper is really 
frightened and depressed far beyond what is necessary. 
. . . The work has a prodigious sale, as all libellous 
matters have. Even General Fillet's [?] satire upon the 
English was bought for two guineas the other day by 
Mr. Grenville. 

"I know Lord Kinnaird also took over the Antiquary 
and the new play, otherwise I would send them to 
you ; but if Moore's poem is good you shall have it. 

"We have been returned to our delicious old 
mansion above a week. Foliage and birds are the 
only demonstration of a change of season from Decem- 
ber, as the cold, piercing easterly winds are still 
dreadful. . . ." 



256 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

" Holland House, Tuesday. 

" I take the opportunity of Lady Lansdowne's 
departure to send you a small parcel of rubbish for 
your friend Gina, and, what is not rubbish, some verses 
by Mr. Rogers to add to his poems. . . . The town 
has been much occupied by a very strange affair 
which led to a duel between Ld. Buckingham and 
Sir Thos. Hardy. It is a mysterious business, but I 
sincerely hope quite over for ever. It was the charge 
of Ld. B. being the author of some very scandalous, 
offensive anonymous letters to, and about, Ly. Hard}^ 
You would naturally suppose that the character of a 
gentleman, which Ld. B. has never forfeited would 
have been a sufficient guard to have repelled such a 
charge ; but the Lady was angry. There are various 
conjectures about the writer of these letters; but, 
except just the angry parties, the world generally do 
justice to Lord B., from the impossibility of a man of 
character and in his station of life being capable of 
such an abominable proceeding. It is not the mode 
of revenge which a man takes, however he may have 
been jilted, or believed himself as so. But all these 
stories you will have heard from the Tierneys, who 
meant to spend some days at Bruxelles. . . . We are 
going to make a northern excursion . . . we shall 
make Lord Grey a visit of a week at Howick, and if 
Lord Lauderdale should not be philandering in these 
parts, stop at Dunbar. . . ." 

Hemy Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey, 

"Temple [no date, 1816?] 

" The opinion is prevalent that the fete after all 
won't hold ; at any rate that P.* won't venture. His 
loyal subjects are sure to attack him, and the burning 
of the temporary room, with the whole fashionable 
world, may be the consequence. Indeed a small 
expense, laid out in one sq^ib, would bring about 
this catastrophe, so they will probably take fright. 
... I dined on Saturday at Dick Wilson's, who was 
pleased to give the Pss. of W.'s health immediately 
after the King's (the D. of Sussex being there), and he 

* The Prince Regent. 



I8i5-i6.] A DISPIRITED RADICAL. 257 

then, with his accustomed patriotism, gave ' The 
Rights of the People.' . . . Young Frog* was t'other 
day made remarkably drunk by a savage animal of 
the name of Wirtemburg (son of the pickled sister, 
your friend), and in this predicament shewn up to 
young P.t among others. The savage took the oppor- 
tunity of making love on his own score, and has been 
forbid C[arlton] House in consequence." 

Hon. H. G. Ben net, M.P., to Mr. Crcevey. 

"Whitehall, July 12 [1816]. 

" Now a word or two about poor Sheridan. One 
does not feel the loss of so great a creature as one 
ought to do, for, after all, he is the last of the giants, 
and there is no one to take the chair he leaves. I 
believe there is no doubt that his death was hastened, 
if not caused, by his distress — by his fear of arrest — 
and if he had been in Parliament he would probably 
have been alive. His dread was a prison, and he felt 
it staring him in the face. . . . The funeral takes place 
on Saturday. Peter Moore invites people to attend, 
and several are going. I have heard of Ld. Guild- 
ford and Thanet. I shd. like to do what was right, 
but I do not think ceremony at all wise or in good 
taste." 

" Walton, July 21. 

". . . The last session has been very damaging to 
the country. . . . The Opposition has made no way 
and the Government are certainly stronger than ever, 
for all the tinsel and lace have rallied round them. At 
the same time, these attacks on the constitution have 
made the liberty boys feel more kindly towards us. 
But we must allow that, tho' the Government are 
hated, we are not loved. ... As you may imagine, 
our friend Brougham has done everything this year 
with no help, for there literally is no one but Folkestone 
who comes into the line and fights. Our leaders are 
away — poor Ponsonby from idleness and from fatigue, 
and Tierney from ill health. I fear he will never show 
again as he used to do. Who is to lead us now? 
God knows ! Some talk of Ld. George Cavendish, 

* The Prince of Orange. Princess Charlotte of Wales. 

S 



258 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XI. 

which I resist, because I think his politicks are 
abominable and his manners insolent and neglectful ; 
but also because the Cavendish system, with the 
Duke [of Devonshire] at the head, is not the thing 
for the present day. They are timid, idle and haughty : 
the Duke dines at Carlton House and sits between 
the Chancellor and Lord Caithness, and I have no 
doubt will have, one of these days, the Ribband. 
Then the Archduchess (as they call him) is a great 
admirer and follower of Prinnie's, and presumes to 
abuse the Mountain, and as I am in duty bound to 
protect myself, he singles me out as the most objec- 
tionable person in the H. of Commons, and says my 
politics are revolutionary. This last offence deter- 
mines me to submit to no Cavendish leader. Milton 
is named, and Tavistock,* who would be the best of 
all, but I fear he loves hunting too much, and has not 
enough money, for we must have a leader with a 
house and cash. So amid all the difficulties, I pro- 
pose a Republic — no leader at all ! . . ." 

From Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [in 
Brussels']. 

"Aug. 15, 1816. Geneva (uninhabitable). 

" Dear C, 

"... I have been here for some time and in 
the neighbourhood. It is a country to be in for two 
hours, or two hours and a half, if the weather is fine, 
and no longer. Ennui comes on the third hour, and 
suicide attacks you before night. There is no resource 
whatever for passing the time, except looking at lakes 
and hills, which is over immediately. I should except 
Mme. Stael, whose house is a great comfort. 

"You may wish to know the truth as to Mother P. 
They resolved, under Mrs. Leach's auspices, to pro- 
ceed. I rather think the Chancellor and ministers 
were jealous of Mrs. L. ; at any rate they were indis- 
posed to the plan, but on it went, and a formal notifi- 
cation was made to little P.'s husband f and herself. 
I believe they were to have begun in Hanover, to 

* Afterwards 7th Duke of Bedford. 

t In May of this year Princess Charlotte of Wales had married 
Leopold, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. 



I8i5-i6.] "YOU MUST COME OVER!" 259 

have something to show to Bull and his wife and 
daughter. But steps were also taken in England. Being 
advised of this from the best authority, I deemed it 
proper, according to the tacticks we have always 
adopted, not to wait to be attacked, but to fire a shot 
of some calibre, and you will by this time have seen 
more of it, tho' you may not have guessed whence it 
came. ... As for Mrs. P. * herself, she won't do any 
more; but the daughter is a strong force and will 
carry the old lady through. Mrs. P. is, I believe, 
among the Ottomans, but I have no sort of communi- 
cation with her. . , . Tell Kinnaird that Lord Byron 
is living here, entirely cut by the English." 

"Rome, 14th Nov., 1816. 

"... I agree in your view of the high importance 
of this session. Lord [illegible'], who is here, holds 
that it will be one of expedients and shifts, and that 
the grand breakdown won't happen yet. I don't 
much differ from him ; but still, it will be the session, 
for their shifts and struggles and agonies will be the 
very time for work. The illustrious Regent mean- 
time has been suffering in the flesh as well as the 
spirit, and I rejoice to find that his last defeat (which 
was a total one) has greatly annoyed him. I suppose 
you are aware of the secret history of it, and of 
Mother P. having miraculously been found fit for 
service once more. However, this time I must say 
she was rather a name than anything else, and little P. 
in reality bore the brunt of the day. I rejoice to say 
that Lord Grey views the divorce question in its true 
light, as do the party generally, i.e. in its connection 
with little P. and upon more general grounds. Both 
Carlton House and Hertford House now say the 
matter is finally at rest. . . . There are too many of 
the party abroad this session. Lord Lansdowne is 
here and remains all the winter in Italy, unless some 
very imperious call should take him home. The 
Jerseys and Cowpers come in a few days with the 
same plans. . . . Lady Jersey's absence is very bad 
for the party. She alone had the right notion of the 
thing, and her great influence in society was always 
honestly and heartily exerted with her usual excellence 
* The Princess of Wales. 



260 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XL 

of disposition. Ill as we can spare speakers, we 
can still less afford such a loss as this. ... All 
this brings me to my text. You mttst come over ; it 
won't do to be absent any longer, therefore make up 
your mind to take the field. Meet me at Paris or 
Calais, if I can't come to Brussels, and 1 can take you 
easily if you don't fear the squeeze of three in a 
carriage. . . . When you get to London, if you please 
you may have my chambers for as long as you stay, 
with the laundress and man. I take lodgings in 
Spring Gardens during the session,, and only am in 
chambers now and then for half an hour to look at 
the statutes. ..." 

Mr. Allen * to Mr. Creevey. 

" Maidenhead, Sat., Nov. -20th. 

"Dear Sir, 

" Lord and Lady Holland are in very great 
affliction, and you who knew the dear little girl they 
have lost and how much they were attached to her, 
will not wonder at their sorrow. ... It is a satisfac- 
tion to hear that Lord Derby's fears are subsiding, 
and from what I observed before I left town I think 
several others who were in the same predicament are 
recovering from their alarm. This mud bespattering 
of the extra Radicals at their last meeting has made 
people ashamed of their fears, and if the Whigs most 
inclined to popular courses adhere steadily to their 
determination of having no communication with the 
Radicals of any description, I trust the session may 
pass over without any schism amon^ Opposition, and 
that ministers will have revived this alarm to very 
little purpose. But all depends on the discretion of 
the two or three first days of the session. One 
violent speech, received with approbation by the 
more eager members of the party, would cause 
the same break-up as in 1792, and give Jenkyt and 
the Duke of Wellington the same despotic authority 
that Mr. Pitt exercised from that period to the end 
of his administration. ..." 

■^ John Allen, M.D. [1771-1843], political writer, a regular inmate 
of Holland House ; of whom Byron said that he was " the best- 
informed and one of the ablest men " that he knew. 

t Lord Liverpool. 



( ^6i ) 



CHAPTER XII. 

1817-1818. 

In 1817 the Creeveys continued in Brussels. Ap- 
parently the hopeless disorganisation of the Opposi- 
tion in Parliament deterred Mr. Creevey from coming 
home ; at least, there are no indications of his having 
availed himself of any of the numerous and pressing 
invitations he received. His friends, however, still 
kept him well supplied with gossip, and Brussels at 
that time was the centre of much political activity, so 
Creevey had no want of occupation for his thoughts, 
his tongue, and his pen. 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" London, March 25, 1817. 

". . . We have holiday this week in virtue of 
Mr. Speaker's right cheek having swelled out with 
erysipelas to an extraordinary size. His appearance 
is worth coming over to see. Sefton and I went to 
his levee t'other night, and the Earl was much 
amused with our small friend's grimaces. . . . Lord 
RoUe coming in he [the Speaker] spoke of the 
climate in Devonshire — ' I take it skates are quite 
unknown in your lordship's part of the world,' and 
so forth. I then made the Earl go to the Chancellor's, 
and rejoice to tell you his observation was how much 
more the manners of a gentleman the Chancr. had, 
which is quite true. I ought to apologise to you for 
taking so much liberty with your little friend, with 
whom I foresee your flirtation is speedily about to 



262 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIl. 

close, for there is a plan of a peerage and a pension 
of ;^400o for three lives. Now I hardly think your 
loves, how warm and constant soever, can stand this 
shock."* 

" London, April i, 1817. 

"... I am glad you and Kinnaird approved of my 
broadside on the 13th March.f ... I knew that Govt, 
would be taken by surprise, and had told Sefton so, 
for Ward and others had said to me some days before 
that they took it for granted I was to give them, as 
they were pleased to say, 'a most valuable speech,' 
on the plan of my last year's on Agricultural distress 
— a sort of pair or pendant to that. I answered I 
meant no such matter, and should divide at all events, 
and regarded it as a hostile occasion. They did not 
believe it — had no guess of attacks on foreign policy, 
and looked innocent and astonished as I went on. I 
was very much tickled, and really enjoyed it, for I 
began quietly to the greatest degree, and only flung in 
a stray shot every 20 minutes or ^ hour by way of 
keeping them on the alert and preserving attention ; 
and when, at the end of the first hour and a half, I 
opened my first battery, I do assure you it had a 
comical effect. . . . Still, it was not quite personal to 
Castlereagh, and when it was over, I changed my 
plan, in order to get breath, and play with them a 
little longer, and give my other fire more effect — that 
is, I went back to general, candid and speculative 
observations, and at large into the taxation part of 
the subject, and having prepared them by a few more 
random shots for a factious conclusion, I then opened 
my last battery upon C, to see whom under the fire 
was absolutely droll. He at first yawned, as he 
generally does when galled — then changed postures 
— then left his seat and came into the centre of the 
bench — then spoke much to Canning and Van, and at 

last was so d d fidgetty that I expected to see him 

get up. It ended by his not saying one word in his 

* Mr. Speaker Abbot, who had hlled the chair since 1802, was 
created Lord Colchester, 3rd June, 1817. 

t He had spoken vehemently against the Property Tax and in 
favour of i-etrenchment in various departments. 



I8i7-i8.] FROM LORD HOLLAND. 263 

own defence, but appealing to posterity. . . . We reall}^ 

want you more than words can describe. You posi- 
tively must come, if but to show. ..." 



Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey. 

" Holland House, 24th June, 18 17. 

". . . The heat of the weather is delightful, but 
writing letters is not the way of enjoying it. The 
country is, or was, as flat about its liberties as it 
had been animated and, according to my judgment, 
absurd about sinecures and Parliamentary reform five 
months ago. However, I think the spies and in- 
formers admirably exposed by Ld. Grey. The con- 
version of Ld. Fitzwilliam and the stoutness of 
Milton,* have somewhat roused them from their 
indifference, and very much shaken any disposition 
there was to approve these revivals of Pitt's worst 
measures. However, the best chance of change in 
the Government is, after all, that of their weakness 
and disunion, rather than our popularity, strength or 
concert. Peel's election has galled the Cannings to 
the quick." f 

[No date.] 
" Dear Creevey, 

" I have put off answering your very enter- 
taining letter and interesting communication to the 
last moment, and unfortunately to a moment when I 
am full of business — trying to get up a Middlesex 
meeting and to bring the great guns, called Dukes, to 
bear upon the question of Habeas Corpus. That 
cursed business of Reform of Parliament is always in 
one's way. With one great man nothing is good 
unless that be the principal object, and with another 
nothing must be done if a word of Reform is even 
glanced at in requisition, petition or discussion. . . . 

* The 3rd Earl Fitzwilliam sat in the House of Commons as 
Viscount Milton from 1807 to 1833. He was strongly opposed at 
first to parliamentary reform ; but became one of its most ardent 
advocates, though his family held a number of pOcket boroughs. 

t Peel was elected member for Oxford in this year, a seat which 
Canning had greatly coveted for himself. 



264 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

They say the Prince has left oflf his stays, and that 
Royalty, divested of its usual supports, makes a bad 
figure. ... I wish I had politics, tittle-tattle or book- 
news to send you. Of the latter, Llandaff's memoirs 
are empty, but cursed provoking to the Court and the 
Church. Franklin's life will be curious, both for its 
information and style. Rob Roy is said to be good, 
but falls off at the end. . . ." 



Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey. 

" Bruges, 4th July, 1 8 1 7. 

" Dear Creevey, 

"We shall make an excursion to Antwerp 
from Brussels instead of taking it on our way, and 
consequently shall arrive the day after to-morrow by 
the Ghent road. We are all well and much delighted 
with the country. How can such a fertile country 
want bread ? and why, when it (bread) has fallen at 
Ypres and even Courtray, is it at the same price 
here? Allen, though he bears Adam Smith and M. 
Marcot in his head, cannot solve this. ..." 



Hon. H. G. Beunet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Oakley, July 20, 1817. 

"... I rejoice at the prospect of your return 
home, as not only I want you, but we all require 
your counsel and aid. . . . Your friends the Grenvilles 
are not only nibbling, but biting at us once more, 
but I trust we shall have nothing to do with them. 
Have you heard of our plan for a leader ? Some 
persons last year thought of one of straw, such as 
Aithorpe or Ld. G. Cavendish, but that wd. not do, 
and we, the Mountaineers, resented the scheme. At 
present we all concur in the necessity of some one, 
and, taking all circumstances into consideration, 
Tierney is the man selected in this choice. Romilly 
and Brougham cordially concur, and I do so likewise : 
not that Mrs. Cole has not many grievous faults, but 



I8i7-i8.] MR. TIERNEY CHOSEN LEADER. 265 

there is no one else who has not more. Romilly 
cannot, from his business ; and Brougham cannot 
from his unpopularity and want of discretion. I 
think that the good old lady can be kept in order, 
and tho' she be timid and idle, yet she is very popular 
in the House, easy and conciliatory; in no way perfect 
— in many ways better than any other person. The 
proposition takes immensely, and at present between 
60 and 70 persons have signified their adherence. Let 
me know your opinion. . . ." 



Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey. 

"Holland House, Friday, September, 1817. 

". . . We staid a short time at Edinburgh and 
made a long visit of a fortnight at Howick, where I 
had the delight of seeing Lord Grey all the time in 
the most perfect health and spirits, his countenance 
exhibiting gaiety and smiles which never are seen 
on this side of Highgate Hill. . . . Lady Louisa is 
very handsome, the others are very tolerably well- 
looking, but not equal to her, but graceful in dancing 
and riding, and excellent musicians. Some of the 
boys are uncommonly promising, especially the 2nd 
son Charles, and little Tom. The House is made one 
of the most comfortable mansions I know, and the 
grounds are as pretty as they can be in the ugliest 
district in the Island. I never expected to be so long 
in a country house, and yet leave it with regret, which 
was the case in this instance. We made a visit to 
Lambton, which is a magnificent house, everything 
in a suitable style of splendor. He is an excellent 
host : his three little babies are his great resource, 
tho' I hope he is recovering his spirits ; and as he has 
no son, the sooner he decides upon taking another 
wife, the happier it will be for all parties. He is 
full of good qualities, and his talents are very 
remarkable. 

" London is very deserted : only a few stragglers, 
and those are not likely to encrease ; as September 
is invariably the most empty month. Lawyers and 



266 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

sportsmen are always absent, and they are a numerous 
part of the community. 

" We have been near losing our Regent, and as 
the physicians mistook his disorder, they have 
probably curtailed his length of life, for the disease 
was treated at first as inflammatory, and they took 
60 ounces of blood. When Baillie saw him he 
declared it to be spasm, and gave laudanum and 
cordials. The consequences are likely to produce 
dropsy. His disinclination to all business is, if 
possible, encreased, and there have been serious 
thoughts of a council of Regency to assist in the 
dispatch of affairs. Pss, Charlotte is going on in her 
grossesse, but there are some strange awkward 
symptoms.* They are living at Claremont. Ld. 
Castlereagh is supposed to ^have entire influence over 
the Prince Leopold. 

" What think you of the pamphlet on the divorce ? 
It is most artfully done. The appeal to the shabby 
ones in the H. of Commons will have its weight, and 
perhaps the threat of recrimination may startle the 
party at Ragley. This skilfull work is supposed to 
come from the borders of the Lake of Geneva. f 

" In the beau monde I hear of Ly. C. Cholmondeley's 
marriage with Mr. Seymour, a son of Lord Hugh's ; 
his brother and Miss Palk ; Lord Sunderland and Ly. 
E. Conyngham. The Duke of Marlborough gives him 

;^5000. 

" You heard of Lady L [illegible] from a ceremonial 
depriving herself of the pleasure of seeing Napoleon. 
The Govt, are displeased that the determination of 
Napoleon's adherents to continue with him should be 
known, and more strictness is adopted in the corre- 
spondence with the Island [of St. Helena]. As you 
will see from many idle paragraphs that the impression 
to be given in this country is that all belonging to 
him hate and abhor him, and wish to be quit of him ; 
whereas the fact is notoriously the contrary. It is 
rather mortifying to see this country become the 
jailors and spies for the Bourbon Govt. ; for to that 
condition Ld. Castlereagh has brought it." 

* Princess Charlotte died in childbirth the following year, 
t I.e. from the pen of John Cam Hobhouse. 



iSi7-i8.] THE DUKE OF KENT'S CONFIDENCES. 26^ 

The following notes of a conversation with H.R.H. 
the Duke of Kent remain in Mr. Creevey's hand- 
writing, apparently as they were written down imme- 
diately after the event. Previous to this year, there 
is no indication that Creevey ever entertained the 
notion of collecting or publishing anything from his 
papers ; but after his wife's death, which occurred in 
1818, time hung more heavily on his hands, and he 
conceived the idea, which he discussed frequently 
with his step-daughter, Miss Ord, of compiling a 
history of his own times. This never took shape, 
further than that his letters to Miss Ord were care- 
fully preserved by his desire, along with much other 
correspondence. Upon this occasion, H.R.H. the 
Duke of Kent happened to be in Brussels, shortly 
after the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales. He 
desired Creevey, whom he had known familiarly in 
former times at the Pavilion and Carlton House, to 
call upon him ; when, after discussing some trifling 
matter relating to the appointment to a chaplaincy, 
he broached a subject which evidently was weighing 
upon his mind. It must be confessed that his Royal 
Highness was not very discreet in choosing Mr, 
Creevey as the repository of his confidence in such 
a delicate matter. Creevey seems to have had no 
scruple in communicating the tenour of the conver- 
sation to some of his friends. He certainly told the 
Duke of Wellington,* and on 30th December Lord 
Sefton wrote from Croxteth, acknowledging Creevey's 
letter with its " most amusing contents. Nothing 
could be more apropos than its arrival, as it was put 
into my hand while a surgeon was sounding my 
bladder with one hand and a finger of the other, to 
* See p. 284. 



268 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

ascertain whether I had a stone or not. I never saw 
a fellow more astonished than he was at seeing me 
laugh as soon as the operation was over. Nothing 
could be more first-rate than the Royal Edward's 
ingenuousness. One does not know which to admire 
most — the delicacy of his attachment to Mme. St. 
Laurent, the refinement of his sentiments towards the 
D. of Clarence, or his own perfect disinterestedness 
in pecuniary matters." 



Notes of a Conversation with H.R.H. the Duke of Kent 
at Brussels, Dec. ii, 1817. 

". . . The Duke begun, to my great surprise, a 
conversation upon the death of the Princess Charlotte, 
and upon an observation from me upon the derangement 
of the succession to the throne by this event, and 
of the necessity of the unmarried Princes becoming 
married, if the crown was to be kept in their family ; 
and having in addition asked him, I believe, what 
he thought the Regent would do on the subject 
of a divorce, and whether he thought the Duke of 
Clarence would marry, the Duke of Kent, to the best 
of my recollection, and I would almost say word for 
word, spoke to me as follows. 

'* ' My opinion is the Regent will not attempt a 
divorce. I know persons in the Cabinet who will 
never consent to such a measure. Then, was he to 
attempt it, his conduct would be exposed to such 
recrimination as to make him unpopular, beyond all 
measure, throughout the country. No : he never will 
attempt it. Besides, the crime of adultery on her 
part must be proved in an English court of justice, 
and if found guilty she must be executed for high 
treason. No : the Regent will never try for a 
divorce. 

" ' As for the Duke of York, at his time of life and 
that of the Duchess, all issue, of course, is out of the 



lSi7-i8.] THE DUKE OF KENT'S CONFIDENCES. 269 

question. The Duke of Clarence, I have no doubt, 
will marry if he can ; but the terms he asks from the 
Ministers are such as they can never comply with. 
Besides a settlement such as is proper for a Prince 
who marries expressl}'' for a succession to the Throne, 
the Duke of Clarence demands the payment of all his 
debts, which are very great, and a handsome pro- 
vision for each of his ten natural children. These are 
terms that no Ministers can accede to. Should the 
Duke of Clarence not marry, the next prince in suc- 
cession is myself; and altho' I trust I shall be at all 
times ready to obey any call my country may make 
upon me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to 
make, whenever I shall think it my duty to become a 
married man. It is now seven-and-twenty years that 
Madame St. Laurent and I have lived together : we 
are of the same age, and have been in all climates, 
and in all difficulties together ; and you may well 
imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will occasion me to 
part with her. I put it to your own feeling — in the 
event of any separation between you and Mrs. 
Creevey. ... As for Madame St. Laurent herself, 
I protest I don't know what is to become of her if a 
marriage is to be forced upon me ; her feelings are 
already so agitated upon the subject. You saw, no 
doubt, that unfortunate paragraph in the Morning 
Chronicle, which appeared within a day or two after 
the Princess Charlotte's death ; and in which my 
marrying was alluded to. Upon receiving the paper 
containing that article at the same time with my 
private letters, I did as is my constant practice, I 
threw the newspaper across the table to Madame 
Saint Laurent, and began to open and read my 
letters. I had not done so but a very short time, 
when my attention was called to an extraordinary 
noise and a strong convulsive movement in Madame 
St. Laurent's throat. For a short time I entertained 
serious apprehensions for her safety ; and when, 
upon her recovery, I enquired into the occasion of 
this attack, she pointed to the article in the Morning 
Chronicle relating to my marriage. 

" ' From that day to this I am compelled to be in 
the practice of daily dissimulation with Madame St. 
Laurent, to keep this subject from her thoughts. I 



2/0 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

am fortunately acquainted with the gentlemen in 
Bruxelles who conduct the Liberal and Oracle news- 
papers; they have promised me to keep all articles 
upon the subject of my marriage out of their papers, 
and I hope- my friends in England will, be equally 
prudent. My brother the Duke of Clarence is the 
elder brother, and has certainly the right to marry if 
he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on 
any account. If he wishes to be King — to be married 
and have children, poor man — God help him ! let him 
do so. For myself — I am a man of no ambition, and 
wish only to remain as I am. . . . Easter, you know, 
falls very early this year — the 22nd of March. If the 
Duke of Clarence does, not take any step before that 
time, I must find some pretext to reconcile Madame 
St. Laurent to my going to England for a short time. 
St. George's day is the day now fixed for keeping the 
birthday, and my paying my respects to the Regent 
on that day will be a sufficient excuse for my appear- 
ing in England. When once there, it will be easy for 
me to consult with my friends as to the proper steps 
to be taken. Should the Duke of Clarence do nothing 
before that time as to marrying, it will become my 
duty, no doubt, to take some measures upon the 
subject myself 

" * You have heard the names of the Princess of 
Baden and the Princess of Saxe-Cobourg mentioned. 
The latter connection would perhaps be the better of 
the two, from the circumstance of Prince Leopold 
being so popular with the nation ; but before any- 
thing is proceeded with in this matter, I shall hope 
and expect to see justice done by the Nation and the 
Ministers to Madame St. Laurent. She is of very 
good family and has never been] an actress, and I am 
the first and only person who ever lived with her. 
Her disinterestedness, too, has been equal to her 
fidelity. When she first came to me it was upon 
;^ioo a year. That sum was afterwards raised to 
^400, and finally to ;^iooo; but when my debts made 
it necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my 
income, Madame St. Laurent insisted upon again 
returning to her income of ;zf400 a year. If Mad. 
St. L. is to return to live amongst her friends, 
it must be in such a state of independence as to 



r8i7-i8.] THE DUKE OF KENT'S CONFIDENCES. 271 

command their respect. I shall not require very 
much, but a certain number of servants and a carriage 
are essentials. Whatever the Ministers agree to give 
for such purposes must be put out of all doubt as 
to its continuance. 1 shall name Mr. Brougham, 
yourself and two other people on behalf of Madame 
St. Laurent for this object. 

" ' As to my own settlement, as I shall marry (if I 
marry at all) for the succession, I shall expect the 
Duke of York's marriage to be considered the pre- 
cedent. That was a marriage for the succession, and 
;^25,ooo for income was settled, in addition to all his 
other income, purely on that account. I shall be con- 
tented with the same arrangement, without making 
any demands grounded upon the difference of the 
value of money in 1792 and at present. As for the 
pa}^ment of my debts, I don't call them great. The 
nation, on the contrary, is greatly my debtor.' 

" Here a clock striking in the room where we were 
seemed to remind the Duke he was exceeding his 
time, and he came to a conclusion almost instantly, 
and I retired." 



Lord Folkestone, M.P., to T. Creevey [in Brussels]. 

" Lower Grosvenor St., Feb. 23 [1818]. 

", . . We go on in the House in a very languishing 
way : very little attendance, and still less attention. 
The House is regularly empty till 9 or 10 o'clock on 
the most interesting questions ; and then the new 
comers are all clamorous for a division to get away 
again. We all like our new Speaker * most extremely : 
he is gentlemanlike and obliging. The would-be 
Speaker {alias Squeaker) t has, as I suppose you have 
heard, moved down to my old anti-Peace-of-Amiens 

* Charles Manners Sutton [i 780-1 845], Speaker of the House 
of Commons from 1817 to 1835, when he was created Viscount 
Canterbury. 

t C. W. W. Wynn. 



372 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

bench. There are Wynn, Fremantle, Phillimore * 
enlisted under Bankes. I rejoice sincerely I did not 
vote for said Squeaker; but some of those who did 
are, I hear, very much ashamed of themselves for it. 
Romilly is in high force this year : Brougham, I know 
not why, has been quite silent. . . . Prinny has let 
loose his belly, which now reaches his knees : other- 
wise he is said to be well. Clarence has been near 
dying : has been refused by the Princess of Denmark, 
and is going, it is thought, to marry Miss Wykeham. 
But his malady is of that nature that they say 
matrimony is likely to destroy him, so that your 
friend the Duke of Kent will be King at last. I hope 
you have noted that the Issues of the Bank have again 
increased, and that the price of gold and other articles 
is rising, and the Bank restriction to continue. The 
old career, it seems, is to be run over again, and the 
few Landed Proprietors who have come unhurt out of 
the first business will be swallowed up in the second. 
A pretty prospect this for a Lord like me with a young 
^nd increasing family. I should like much to introduce 
to you my son, who is a very jolly fellow. Lady F. 
tells me that she is known to you, though not in the 
character of my wife." 

Mr. Creevey was a warm and intimate friend of 
Lord Kinnaird, who, like himself, had been a vehement 
opponent of the war with France. Lord Kinnaird 
was so indiscreet as to persist openly in his anti- 
national demonstrations long after the war was over. 
Being in Brussels in 1818, a certain French refugee 
named Marinet, then under sentence of death, offered 
to reveal to Kinnaird a plot for the assassination of 
the Duke of Wellington in Paris, on condition that 
Kinnaird would intercede for him with M. de Cazes. 
Kinnaird informed Sir George Murray, the Duke's 
Adjutant-General, by letter, who naturally asked the 
name of the informer. This Kinnaird refused to 

• Joseph Phillimore [1775-1855], M.P. for St. Mawes 1817-26. 



i8i7-i8.] LORD KINNAIRD'S AFFAIR. 273 

give, having passed his word that he should not do 
so ; neither could he be induced to reveal it after 
the attempt upon the Duke's life had been made 
by Cantillon on loth February. Upon this the 
Belgian Government ordered his arrest. Kinnaird 
left Brussels secretly, taking Marinet with him. Both 
were arrested on arriving in Paris, but Kinnaird was 
released at the request of the Duke, who took him 
into his own house, to prevent him being " lodged in 
the Conciergerie," as the Duke explained to Lord 
Bathurst, "which I certainly should not have liked."* 
On 15th April, Kinnaird left Paris, for Brussels, 
as he informed the Duke, but really on his way to 
England, leaving behind him a letter addressed to 
the French Chambre des Pairs, accusing the Govern- 
ment, and, by implication, the Duke of Wellington, of 
breach of faith in the arrest of Marinet. Kinnaird's 
indiscretion brought him into very unfavourable 
notice at the time ; he was even suspected of some 
degree of complicity in the crime, whereof the Duke 
freely acquitted him, though Lady Holland always 
afterwards spoke of him as " Oliver " Kinnaird. 
There is nothing of interest in Kinnaird's letters at 
the time to Creevey, but one to his wife may serve to 
show him in the light of a wrong-headed busybody, 
without any useful field for his activity. 



Lord Kinnaird to Lady Kinnaird. 

"Paris, April, 181 8. 

" What shall I tell you of the proceedings here ? 
My patience is exhausted. I have in vain claimed the 

* Wellington's Siipplcmcnfa>y Despatches^ xii. 382. 

T 



274 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

interference of the Duke [of Wellington] and the justice 
of the Govt, in favor of a man unjustly imprisoned. I 
have suffered all sorts of calumnies to be spread agt. 
me for a long tima I v^ill no longer submit to it, and 
have now given definite notice that I will leave Paris 
this week. ... I would not trust our own courier, or 
Dukes, or Ambassadors. You have no notion of the 
mischievous attacks some ministerial papers have been 
making on me. You may believe I despise them, but 
I think I must say something in reply. ..." 

In the summer of 1818 took place a general election, 
and Creevey received notice to quit Thetford, which 
he had represented since 1802. The reason for the 
new Duke of Norfolk making this change is not 
apparent ; possibly he was dissatisfied with Creevey's 
absence from Parliament for more than three years ; 
possibly, as Brougham had anticipated, the Duke's 
mother-in-law. Lady Stafford, may have induced him 
to choose one of her own friends. Anyhow, Creevey 
bitterly resented this treatment at the hands of his old 
friend Bernard Howard, and wrote him a very long 
letter of remonstrance. The correspondence is only 
worth referring to as illustrating a condition of affairs 
which ceased to exist in this country with the passing 
of the Reform Act of 1832. Creevey reminds the 
Duke that they have been acquainted for sixteen 
years. 

"The question I put to you, Duke, is this— Why 
have you not noticed me in your arrangements for the 
new Parliament, or why have you not given me your 
reasons for not doing so? Shall I begin with my 
claims upon you on publick grounds ? I can only do 
this by comparing myself with the persons returned 
by you. I will take, for instance, the returns of Mr. 
Phillips and his son. ... I have learnt, and am taught 
to believe, that Mr, Phillips's claims upon you are 



iSiS.] MR. CREEVEY DISLODGED FROM THETFORD. 275 

founded upon a large loan of money that he advanced 
to you two or three years ago. ... I am certain that 
mature reflection will show you the fatal effects that 
such a precedent, if generally followed, would produce, 
as well upon your own body — the Aristocracy — as 
upon the Constitution itself of your country. . . . Need 
I point out to you, Duke, the certain and speedy result 
of such operations on the part of the Aristocracy? 
Would they not then, at least, be subject to the 
reproach, hitherto so unjustly and maliciously urged 
against them, of trafficking in seats in Parliament? 
. . . How long do you think the Constitution and 
liberties of the country would survive the loss of 
publick character in the Aristocracy ? " 

To all this, and a great deal more, the Duke replied 
very briefly, expressing regret that "dear Creevey" 
was not "in any situation that he desired, and in 
which the exertion of his talents might be useful to 
the country," but refusing to acknowledge " the right 
he had thought proper to exercise of reproaching 
him (the Duke) with imaginary injustice." He is 
willing to attribute Mr. Creevey's " extraordinary and 
unmerited asperity to some temporary irritation pro- 
ceeding from misconceptions." 

Having, then, lost the seat which he had held for 
sixteen years, during four Parliaments ; having, also, 
lost his excellent wife, and, with her, the greater part 
of his income, he moved with his step-daughters, the 
Miss Ords, from Brussels to Cambray, where the 
Duke of Wellington had the headquarters of the army 
of occupation. While there he kept, or attempted to 
keep, a journal, which is not without some passages of 
interest. 



3/6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cn. XII. 



Extracts from Mr. Creevey's Journal 

" Cambray, i6th July, 1818. — I came from Brussells 
to Cambray with the Miss Ords on 14th July, and got 
there the 15th. To-day I rode to see a cricket match 
between the officers near the town, and presently the 
Duke of Wellington rode there likewise, accompanied 
by Mrs. Harvey and Miss Caton. As soon as he saw 
me, he rode up and shook hands with me, and asked 
me if I was returned in the new Parliament, to which 
I answered that the weather was too hot to be in 
Parliament, and that I should wait till it was cooler. 
He asked me to dine with him that day, but I was 
engaged to the officers who were playing the match, 
and he then asked me for the next day. 

" lyth. — I dined with the Duke. . . . Mrs. Harvey 
and Miss Caton were the only ladies. We were about 
sixteen or eighteen, I suppose ; no strangers but 
myself One of the first things said at dinner by 
the Duke was : — ' Did you see Kinnaird at Brussells, 
Creevey ? ' to which I said : — * Yes, I saw him on 
Monday, just on the point of starting for Milan, where 
he means to spend the next winter.' Upon which 
the Duke said : — ' By God ! the Austrian Government 
won't let him stay there.' — 'Oh impossible,' I said, 
' upon what pretence can they disturb him ? ' — and then 
he paused, and afterwards added : — * Kinnaird is not 
at all busy wherever he goes : ' to which I made no 
answer. This was the year in which Lord Kinnaird 
took up Marinet from Brussells to Paris, to give 
evidence about the person who had fired at the Duke 
in Paris — an affair in which Kinnaird, to my mind, 
acted quite right, and Wellington abominably to him 
in return. ... In the evening I had a long walk and 
talk with the Duke in the garden, and he was very 
agreeable. . . . We talked over English politics, and 
upon my saying that never Government cut so 
contemptible a figure as ours did the last session — 
particularly in the repeated defeats they sustained on 
the proposals to augment the establishments of the 
Dukes of Clarence, Kent and Cumberland upon their 



lSi7-i8.] ' JOURNAL. 277 

marriages, he said : — ' By God ! there is a great deal 
to be said about that. They (the Princes) are the 
damnedest millstone about the necks of any Govern- 
ment that can be imagined. They have insulted — 
personally insulted — two thirds of the gentlemen of 
England, and how can it be wondered at that they 
take their revenge upon them when they get them in 
the House of Commons ? It is their only oppor- 
tunity, and I think, by God ! they are quite right to 
use it.' 

" i8//z. — Invited to dine at Lord Hill's, where the 
Duke and a great party were to be ; but I would not 
go, because I found [General] Barnes had written to 
Lord Hill desiring him to ask me. 

"23r^. — Dined at Sir Andrew Hamond's, with 
Alava,* Hervey, Lord Wm. Russell and the Lord 
knows who besides. Young Lord William was very 
good about politics, and civil enough to say he was 
sorry I was out of Parliament. 

No date. — " Dined at Sir Lowry Cole's f and liked 
Lady Frances very much — very good-looking, excellent 
manner and agreeable. That cursed fellow Colonel 
Stanhope % was there amongst others, who I remember 
was an Opposition man 3 years ago, but who now 
is in Parliament and a Government lick-spittle. He 
made up to me cursedly, but I would not touch 
him. 

No date. — "Dined at Lord Hill's with my young 
ladies and Hamilton and a monstrous party, all in a 
tent at his house four miles from Cambray. I should 
just as soon have supposed Miss Hill — Lord Hill's 
sister — who was there, to have been second-in-com- 
mand of our army, as Lord Hill, his appearance is so 

* Note by Mr. Creevey. — "The Representative of Spain at the 
Court of the Bourbons, and at Wellington's headquarters also — a most 
upright and incomparable man." 

t Second son of the ist Earl of Enniskillen: commanded the 4th 
Division in the Peninsular War, and married a daughter of the ist 
Earl of Malmesbur>% 

X Probably the Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope, son of the 3rd 
Earl Stanhope, and father of the present Mr. Banks Stanhopeof Revesby 
Abbey. Creevey's uncomplimentary reference is to nothing worse than 
Stanhope's change of politics. 



278 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

unmilitary.* He and his sister seem excellent people, 
and Barnes tells me that there cannot be a better 
second-in-command of an army than Lord Hill. I 
found Master Stanhope there again, and he wanted 
me to dine with him, but I would do no such thing. 
He has no talents : he is all pretension and impudence. 
Col. Percy t is by far the best hand at conversation of 
the Duke s young men. 

No date. — " Dined at the Duke of Wellington's. 
The ladies were Lady Charlotte Greville and Lady 
Frances Cole. The Duke began by asking : — ' Well, 
Creevey, how many votes have the Opposition gained 
this election ? Who is Wilson that is come in for 
the City, and what side is he of?' I thought Lady 
Frances looked rather astounded at such familiarity, 
and upon such a subject. At dinner he began again : 
— 'Who is to be your leader in the House of 
Commons ? ' I said they talked of Tierney, but I 
was quite sure Romilly ought to be the man. — ' Ah,' 
he said, 'Tierney is a sharp fellow, and I am sure 
will give the Government a good deal of trouble. 
As for Romilly, I know little of him, but the House 
of Commons never likes lawyers.' So I said that 
was true generally, and justly so, but that poor 
Horner J had been an exception, and so was Romilly : 
that they were no ordinary, artificial skirmishing 
lawyers, speaking from briefs, but that they con- 
veyed to the House, in addition to their talents, the 
impression of their being really sincere, honest men. 
I availed myself of this occasion to turn to my next 
neighbour Lord W. Russell, and to give him a good 
lecture upon the great merits of Romilly and the 
great folly of our party in making Tierney leader, 
whose life had been in such direct opposition to all 
Whig principles. I found the young lord quite 
what a Russell ought to be. 

* Sir Rowland Hill, created Viscount Hill in 1814 for his splendid 
services in the Peninsular War, was a great favourite with his soldiers, 
among whom he was known as " Daddy Hill." 

t Fifth son of the 5th Duke of Northumberland ; aide-de-camp, 
first to Sir John Moore, and then to the Duke of Wellington. Carried 
the Duke's despatches to London after Waterloo. 

% Horner died in 1S17. 



I8i7-i8.] JOURNAL. 279 

" In the evening I had a walk with the Duke again 
in the garden, and upon my asking some question 
about the Regent, as the Duke had just come from 
England, he said : — * By God ! you never saw such a 
figure in your life as he is. Then he speaks and 
swears so like old Falstaff, that damn me if I was not 
ashamed to walk into a room with him.' 

" Our conversation was interrupted by Mrs. 
Harvey and Miss Caton coming up to the Duke with 
a Yankee general in their hands — a relation of theirs, 
just arrived from America — General Harper, whom 
they presented to the Duke. It is not amiss to see 
these sisters, Mrs. Harvey and Miss Caton, not con- 
tent with passing themselves off for tip-top Yankees, 
but playing much greater people than Lady C. 
Greville and Lady F. Cole — to me too, who re- 
member their grandfather, old Caton, a captain of an 
Indiaman in Liverpool ; their father an adventurer to 
America, and know their two aunts now at Liverpool 
— Mrs. Woodville and another, who move in about 
the third-rate society of that town. 

No date. — " Dined at Sir George Murray's * with 
Alava, General Harper and a very large party. I sat 
next to Harper, who quite came up to my notion of a 
regular Yankee. I touched him upon the late seizure 
of the Floridas by the United States, but he was as 
plausible, cunning and Jesuitical as the very devil. 
He was singularly smug and spruce in his attire, and 
looked just as old Caton would have looked the first 
Sunday after a Guinea voyage — in new cloaths from 
top to bottom. From the Floridas he went to 
fashionable life, and asked me if he could not live very 
genteelly in London for ;^6ooo per annum. 

" Sir George was all politeness and good manners, 
but he is feeble^ tho' they say excellent in his depart- 
ment. He has not a particle of the talent of Barnes, 
nor do I see any one who has, except the Duke. He 
[Murray] and his staff — Sir Charles Brooke and 
Eckersley — are for all the world like three old maids. 
"The young ladies and I were at a ball at the 
Duke's, and he was very civil to us all, as he always 

* Wellington's trusted and excellent Quartermaster-General during 
the Peninsular War. 



28o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

is, and called out to us in going to supper to sup at 
his table. 

" Monday \_no other date]. . . . Hope of the Staff 
Corps is to go on Thursday with dispatches to the 
Duke, and wishes me to go with him as he travels 
in a cabriolet, which I most cordially consent to do. 

" Thursday. — Hope and I left Cambray about 5 
in the evening — went thro' St. Quintin, La Fere, 
&c. I was much interested by Laon and its 
vicinity, as well on account of its singular position, 
as having been the theatre of so much fighting 
between Blucher and Buonaparte in 1814. The 
vineyards, likewise, on the right hand side of the 
road and on the slope of the hills before and after 
Sillery were very pretty. We got to Chalons 
between four and five, having travelled all night 
of course, and before the Duke; so we got the 
postmaster to let us shave and clean ourselves in 
his house, and that being done, we sallied forth to a 
restaurateur to dine, leaving a special messenger on 
the spot to summon Hope the moment the iJuke's 
courier arrived. Hope was sent for before we had 
finished, and was at the post house with his dis- 
patches just as the Duke drove up. I followed in a 
few minutes. Hope had told him I was with him, 
and when I came he shook hands out of the window. 
On his expressing some surprise at seeing me there, 
I told him I was trying how 1 liked travelling at the 
expense of Government. The Duke then said : — 
' Come on and dine with me at Vitry, Creevey,' and 
off he drove. 

"We got to Vitry about ten. The Duke had 
driven much faster than us, so as to have time to 
answer his letters, and to have the return dispatches 
ready for Hope. The inn we found him in was the 
most miserable concern I have ever beheld — so small 
and so wretched that after we had entered the gate 
I could not believe that we were right, till the 
Duke, who had heard the carriage enter, came out 
of a little wretched parlour in the gateway, with- 
out his hat, and on seeing me said : — 'Come in here, 
Creevey: dinner is quite ready.' Dinner accordingly 
was brought in by a couple of dirty maids, and it 
consisted of four dishes — 2 partridges at the top, a 



i8i7-i8.] JOURNAL. 281 

fowl at the bottom, fricassee of chicken on one side 
and something equally substantial on the other. The 
company was the Duke, Count Brozam [?], aide-de- 
camp to the Emperor of Russia, Hervey, Sir Ulysses 
de Burgh, Hope and myself. Cathcart and Cradock 
were not come up, but were expected every moment. 

** The Duke had left Paris at 5 in the morning, and 
had come 130 miles, and a cold fowl was all that had 
been eaten by his party in the coach during the day. 
Altho' the fare was so scanty, the champagne the 
commonest of stuff, and the house so bad, it seemed 
to make no impression on the Duke. He seemed 
quite as pleased and as well satisfied as if he had 
been in a palace. He and I had a very agreeable 
conversation for an hour or an hour and a half, princi- 
pally about improvements going on in France, which 
had been begun by Buonaparte — land, &c., &c. — and 
then we all went to bed. 

" In the morning we all breakfasted together at 
five o'clock punctually. Our fare was tea in a great 
coffee-pot about two feet high. We had cups to 
drink out of, it is true ; but no saucers. The Duke, 
however, seemed quite as satisfied with everything 
as the night before ; and when I observed, by way of 
a joke, that I thought the tea not so very bad, con- 
sidering it was made, I supposed, at Vitry : — ' No,' said 
he, with that curious simplicity of his, * it is not : I 
brought it with me from Paris.' 

" He gave Cathcart and Cradock a rub for not 
being up the night before, and then we all got into 
our carriages — the Duke and suite for Colmar, and 
Hope and I for Cambray. . . . 

''Sunday. — Hope and I got back to Cambray at 
about two o'clock in the afternoon. . . . Lady Aid- 
borough came to Cambray. ... I am as much con- 
vinced as ever that she is the readiest, quickest 
person in conversation I have ever seen, but she is 
a little too much upon the full stretch. Was she 
quieter, she would be more agreeable. The truth is, 
however, she knows too well the imprudences of her 
past life, and she is fighting for her place in society 
by the perpetual exercise of her talents. 

" Septr. 8. — On the evening of this day between 5 
and 6 I saw the Duke's coach and six going full speed 



282 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

on the Valenciennes road, and I found after he was 
running away from the Duke of Kent, who had sent 
to say he w^as coming; so the D. of W. dispatched 
Cathcart to stop him, and went off himself. . . . 

" Wednesday, gth. — Barnes and I came over to 
Valenciennes in his chaise, and got there about half 
an hour before dinner. 1 met the Duke in the 
street, and he asked me laughingly if I had been 
to call on my friend the Duke of Kent, and said I 
should meet him at dinner. I thought from this I 
ought to call, so Barnes, Sir W. W. Wynn (whom 
I had picked up in the street) and myself went 
and wrote our names at the Duke of Kent's. This 
made us latish for dinner, and when we got there 
everybody almost was arrived — about sixty in 
number, I should say. As I was so late, I kept 
in the background, but the Duke of Kent saw me 
immediately, and forced his way to me. After 
shaking hands with me in the most cordial manner, 
and saying all kinds of civil and apparently most 
friendly things to me about my own situation (Mrs. 
Creevey_ being recently dead and myself being out 
of Parliament), and the regret of my friends in 
England at my absence, he began about himself.— 
'You may probably be surprised, Mr. Creevey, at 
seeing me here, considering the illness of my poor 
mother; but the Queen is a person of the greatest 
possible firmness of mind, and tho' she knows 
perfectly well that her situation is a hopeless one, 
she would not listen to any offers of mine to remain 
with her, and indeed nothing but her pressing me to 
come abroad could have made me do so.' 

" The Dutchess of Kent had an old, ugly German 
female companion with her, and the Duke of Welling- 
ton was going about amongst his staff before dinner, 
saying — 'Who the devil is to take out the maid of 
honor?' and at last said — 'Damme, Fremantle, find 
out the Mayor and let him do it' So the Mayor of 
Valenciennes was brought up for the purpose, and a 
capital figure he was. We had an excellent dinner in 
a kind of occasional building, and as I got next Lord 
Arthur Hill * it was a very agreeable one. . . . 

* Afterwards Lord Sandys. 



i8i7-i8.] JOURNAL. 283 

" Thursday, loth. — Barnes took me out in his 
chaise about six or seven miles on the road towards 
Bouchain, where we found the troops on their 
ground, and then we got on horseback. The Saxon 
contingent I thought most beautiful, and the Danes 
I thought the dirtiest dogs I ever in my life beheld. 

"The Duke of Kent's appearance was atrocious. 
He was dressed in the jacket and cap of his regiment 
(the Royals), and but for his blue ribbon and star, he 
might have passed for an orderly sergeant. The Duke 
of Wellington's appearance was, as it always is on 
such occasions, quite perfect. I have never seen any 
one to be compared to him. . . . After the review, we 
went back to Valenciennes, and dined again with the 
Duke of Wellington. . . . The party to-day was much 
less — about 40. Lord Darnley, I think, was the only 
additional stranger. Sir Lowry Cole handed out 
Mrs. Hamilton, Sir George Murray Miss Ord, and 
General Barnes Miss E. Ord,* and 1 got next to old 
Watkin, and talked over the Westminster election 
with him. In the evening the Duke gave a ball, which 
was as crowded as the very devil. 

^^ Friday, 11. — This morning Barnes and I set off to 
see the Russian troops reviewed. . . . The Count 
Woronzow, Commander-in-chief of the Russians, had 
sent forty pair of horses with drivers, &c., &c., to bring 
over such English persons as were to be present. . . . 
A little short of Bovary we found a relay of 40 other 
pair of horses standing in the road, and these took us 
to the ground. . . . Here again Cossack saddle horses 
were provided by Count Woronzow for all the 
strangers. . . . We had been all invited beforehand 
to dine with Count Woronzow, and just as the review 
was finishing, he rode up to every English carriage to 
say he was to have a ball in the evening. . . . After 
dinner, the ball opened, when my delight was to see 
the Mizurko danced by Madame Suwarrow and her 
brother the Prince Nariskin, Commander-in-chief of 
the Cossacks. The Dutchess of Kent waltzed a little, 
and the Duke of Kent put his hand upon her cheek 
to feel if she was not too hot. I believe it was this 
display of tenderness on his part that made the Duke 

" Creevey's step-daughter. 



284 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cli. Xll. 

of Wellington turn suddenly to me and say: — 'Well, 
Creevey, what has passed between you and the Corporal 
since you have met this time ? ' So I told him of our 
conversation on the Wednesday at his dinner, not 
omitting, of course, the pathetic part about the Queen ; 
upon which he laid hold of my button and said : — 
'God damme! d'ye know what his sisters call him? 
By God ! they call him Joseph Surface ! ' and then sent 
out one of his hearty laughs, that made every one 
turn about to the right and left to see what was the 
matter. . . , 

"The Duke of Wellington's constant joking with 
me about the Duke of Kent was owing to the curious 
conversation I had with the latter at Brussells in the 
autumn of 1817, the particulars of which had always 
amused the Duke of Wellington very much.* . . . 

^^ Saturday. — We were all invited to breakfast at 
the Count's [Woronzow] this morning, but we were 
to go first at 9 o'clock to see the Count's school, which 
we did, and saw 400 or 500 private soldiers at their 
lessons — reading, writing and arithmetic, upon Lan- 
caster's plan. Nothing could be nicer than the room, 
or more perfect than the establishment. This educa- 
tion takes eight months, and the whole army goes 
through it in turn. Besides this, there was another 
school where shoe-making, tayloring and other things 
are taught. As the Duke of Kent was to the last 
degree tiresome in examining all the details of this 
establishment, and asked questions without end, I ex- 
pressed some impatience to get to my breakfast, upon 
which the Duke of Wellington, who heard me, was 
much amused, and said : — ' I recommend you, when- 
ever you start with any of the Royal family in a 
morning, and particularly with the Corporal, always 
to breakfast first.' I found he and his staff had all 
done so, and his fun was to keep saying all the time 
we were kept there — ' Voila le monsieur qui n'a pas 
dejeune ! ' pointing to me. 

" I got, however, to my breakfast at last, and found 
the Dutchess of Kent and other ladies there likewise, 
... I must say the Count Woronzow is one of the 
most captivating persons I have ever seen. He 

* See pp. 267-271 



I8i7-i8.] JOURNAL. 285 

appears about 35 years of age: there is a polish and 
a simplicity at the same time in his manner that sur- 
passes anything I have ever seen. He seems all 
work — all kindness — all good breeding — without a 
particle of pride, ostentation or affectation. I consider 
him as one of the greatest curiosities I have ever seen. 

^'September \_no date]. — I dined at the Duke of 
Wellington's, and was much pleased to find the Due 
de Richelieu there, whom I had never seen before. 
He was just arrived, on his way to the Congress at 
Aix-la-chapelle, The Duke of W. introduced me to 
him, and 1 never saw a Frenchman I took such a 
fancy to before. His excellent manners, his simplicity 
and his appearance, are most striking and agreeable. 
We had a small party and no ladies. From Sir 
George Murray being between the Due de Richelieu 
and myself at dinner, and my deaf ear towards him 
into the bargain, I lost much of his conversation. 
The Duke of Wellington, however, after Richelieu 
was gone, told me in conversation what had passed 
between them, which was not amiss. The D. of R. 
asked the D. of W. if he had heard what had passed 
at the Hague the other day at the christening of the 
Prince of Orange's second son, to which Wellington 
replied no. The D. of R. then told him that on that 
occasion, there being a dinner and fete, the Prince of 
Orange had made a flaming patriotic oration, in which 
he had expressed his devotion to his Belgic, as well 
as his Dutch, compatriots, and concluded by declaring 
he would sacrifice his life in repelling any power who 
dared to invade their country. Upon which the Duke 
of Wellington said to Richelieu: — 'Who the devil 
does he mean? I suppose you — the French.' — 'No,' 
answered Richelieu, 'it is said he meant you — the 
English.' There had been some talk of an army of 
observation being formed of our troops, to be kept in 
the Netherlands, so maybe it was an allusion to this. 

" I said to the Duke what a pity it was that the 
Prince of Orange, after distinguishing himself as he 
had done at Waterloo, should make such a goose of 
himself: to which Wellington said with his comical 
simplicity : — ' So it is, but I can't help it. I have done 
all I could for him.' 

" Barnes has told me more than once during my 



286 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

stay at Cambray a fact about the Prince of Orange 
which, incredible as I at first thought it, must be true: 
viz. — that the Prince was mad enough to listen to 
some proposals made to him by certain French exiles 
as to making him think of France and dethroning old 
Louis Dix-huit. Kinnaird had often told me there 
was something of this kind going on, which I quite 
scouted ; and then he told me afterwards, when he 
was interrogated by the police on the subject of 
Wellington's affair, that many questions were put to 
him on the subject of this plot in favor of the Prince 
of Orange, and as to what Kinnaird knew about it ; 
but Barnes told me that Fagel, the Minister from the 
Pays Bas at Paris, told him (Barnes) that all this was 
perfectly true ; and not only so, but that in conse- 
quence of it the Prince of Orange had been obliged to 
answer certain prepared interrogations which were 
put to him by the allied Sovereigns on this subject. 
So it must be true, and Wellington of course knew it 
to be so during this conversation with me. 

" We had after this a very long conversation, and 
quite alone. I apologised for a question I was about 
to ask him, and begged him if I was doing wrong to 
tell me so immediately. I said Mrs. Hamilton expected 
to be confined in eight or ten weeks, and he would do 
me a signal favor if he would tell me if the army was 
really to leave France, as in that case she would never 
run the risque of being confined at Cambray, and left 
after the army was gone. He answered without the 
slightest hesitation : — ' Oh, you must remove her cer- 
tainly. I shall begin to move the army next month, 
and 1 hope by the 20th of November to have got 
everybody away,* I shall keep a single battalion for 
myself, and shall be the last to leave this place ... so 
remove Mrs. Hamilton to Bruxelles or to Mons, but 
certainly out of France.' 

"We then went to politics, and publick men and 
publick speaking. He said much in favor of Lord 
Grey's and Lord Lansdowne's speaking. Of the 
former he said that, as leader of the House of Commons 
he thought his manner and speaking quite perfect ; and 

* The Duke's farewell to the army of occupation was issued as 
ordre-du-jour on 30th October. 



i8i7-i8.] JOURNAL. 287 

of Lord Lansdowne* he said that, had he remained 
in the House of Commons he must have been minister 
of the country long before this time. ' But,' said he, 
'they are lost by being in the House of Lords. Nobody 
cares a damn for the House of Lords ; the House of 
Commons is everything in England, and the House of 
Lords nothing.' 

"I then favored him with my notions of some 
on the other side. I said there was no fact I was 
more convinced of than that Castlereagh would have 
expired politically in the year 1809 — that all the world 
by common consent had had enough of him, and were 
tired out — had it not been for the piece of perfidy by 
Canning to him at that time, and that this, and this 
alone, had raised him from the dead, and given him 
his present great position. I then followed up Canning 
on the score of his infinite meanness in taking his 
Lisbon job and filling his present inferior situation 
under Castlereagh, whose present situation he (Can- 
ning) held in 1809, and then, forsooth! was too great 
a man to act with Castlereagh as his inferior. 

"All this Wellington listened to, it is true; but 
he would not touch it,t except by saying he heard 
Canning and Whitbread have a sparring bout in the 
House of Commons, and he thought Whitbread had 
much the best of it. The conversation ended by 
further remarks about publick speaking. — 'There's 
the Due de Richelieu, for instance,' he said, ' altho' he 
speaks as Minister, and has everything prepared m 
writing, you never heard anything so bad in your life 
as his speaking.' 

" It is a very curious thing to have seen so much 
of this said Duke as I have done at different times, 
considering the impostors that most men in power 
are — the insufferable pretensions one meets with in 
every Jack-in-office — the uniform frankness and simpli- 
city of Wellington in all the conversations 1 have 
heard him engaged in, coupled with the unparalleled 
situation he holds in the world for an English subject, 

* Formerly Lord Henry Petty. 

t The old soldier was far too wary to give himself away, knowmg, 
as he must have done, from having heard all about the Duke of Kent's 
confession, how freely Creevey repeated confidential conversations. 



288 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cli. XII. 

make him to me the most interesting object I have 
ever seen in my life." 

The following memorandum, suggested by the 
publication in 1822 of O'Meara's Voice front St Helena, 
refers to the autumn of 18 18, immediately before the 
withdrawal of the Army of Occupation and the Duke 
of Wellington's return to England : — 



Memorandum. 

" Having met the Duke of Wellington accidentally 
in the Park at Brussels, and walked with him at his 
request to the French Minister's house, Monr. Mallet 
du Pan,* and having talked a good deal about France 
now that the Allies had just evacuated it, I said : — 

" * Well now, Duke, let me ask you, don't you think 
Lowe a very unnecessarily harsh gaoler of Buona- 
parte at St. Helena? It is surely very disreputable 
to us to put any restraint upon him not absolutely 
necessary for his detention.' f 

"'By God!' he replied in his usual manner, 'I 
don't know. Buonaparte is so damned intractable a 
fellow there is no knowing how to deal with him. To 
be sure, as to the means employed to keep him there, 
never was anything so damned absurd. I know the 
island of St. Helena well. I looked at every part of 
it on my return from the East Indies ' — and then he 
described three or four places as the only ones by 
which a prisoner could escape, and that they were 
capable of being made quite inaccessible by a mere 
handful of men. I then said, from what I had seen of 
Lowe at Brussels in i8i4and 1815, he seemed to me 
the last man in the world for the general officer, from 
his fidgetty nature and disposition ; upon which the 
Duke said : — 

* S^'c in orig., but Mallet du Pan died in 1800, and never was a 
minister. 

t "The irritation displayed by the captive of St. Helena in his 
bickerings with his gaoler affect most men more than the thought of 
the nameless thousands whom his insatiable egotism had hurried to 
the grave." [Lecky's European Morals, i. 139, ed. 1869.] 



i8i7-i8.] SIR HUDSON LOWE. 289 

" ' As for Lowe, he is a damned fool. When I 
came to Brussels from Vienna in 1815, I found him 
Quarter-Master-General of the army here, and I pre- 
sently found the damned fellow would instruct me in 
the equipment of the army, always producing the 
Prussians to me as models ; so I was obliged to tell 
him I had commanded a much larger army in the field 
than any Prussian general, and that I was not to learn 
from their service how to equip an army. I thought 
this would have stopped him, but shortly afterwards 
the damned fellow was at me again about the equip- 
ment, &c., of the Prussians ; so I was obliged to write 
home and complain of him, and the Government were 
kind enough to take him away from me.' 

"During the same autumn of 1818, being one night 
at Lady Charlotte Greville's, then living at the Hotel 
d'Angleterre, the Duke of Wellington coming in asked 
me if I had any news from England, to which I replied 
'none but newspaper news,* viz. that the Duke of 
Wellington was or was going to be Master of the 
Ordnance : to which he said * Ho ! ' or ' Ha ! ' but quite 
gravely, and without any contradiction, so I was sure 
it was true. From that hour he was an altered man — 
quite official in everything he said, tho' still much 
more natural and accessible than any other official I 
ever saw, except Fox. 

"A day or two after this conversation I met Alava, 
and, knowing his devotion to the Duke, I asked him 
what he thought of his new situation. He said he 
never was more sorry for any event in his life — that 
the Duke of Wellington ought never to have had any- 
thing to do with politicks — that he ought to have 
remained, not only as the soldier of England, but of 
Europe, to be ready to appear again at its command 
whenever his talents and services might be wanted. 
I have seen a good deal of Alava at different times, 
and a more upright human being, to all appearance, I 
never beheld." 



The Opposition, which had lost one of its candi- 
dates for leadership in 1815, in the person of Samuel 
Whitbread, now lost another in Sir Samuel Romilly, 

u 



290 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XII. 

and in the same dreadful manner — suicide. In reply- 
ing to Mr. Bennet's letter announcing this event, 
Creevey took occasion to reply also to an earlier one, 
informing him of Tierney's election as Opposition 
leader in the House of Commons, which was little to 
Creevey's liking, for he and the rest of " the Mountain '■ 
had always derided " Old Mrs. Cole " as too timid for 
the part. 



Ml'. Creevey to Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P. 

"Brussels, Dec. 30th, 1818. 

**. . . I must advert to the great calamity we have 
all sustained in the death of poor Romilly. His loss 
is perfectly irreparable. By his courageous and con- 
sistent public conduct, united with his known private 
worth, he was rapidly acquiring an authority over 
men's minds that, had his life been spared a few years, 
would, 1 think, have equalled, if not surpassed, even 
that of Mr. Fox. He indeed was a leader, that all true 
Whigs would have been proud to follow, however his 
modesty might induce him to decline being called so. 

"And now I am brought to the question you pro- 
pose me — viz. : what I think of your having chosen 
Tierney for the leader of the Whigs in the House of 
Commons. In the first place, I think you deceive 
yourselves by supposing the leader of the Whigs of 
England to be an article that can be created by election, 
or merely by giving it that name. A man must make 
himself such leader by his talents, by his courage, 
and above all by the excellence and consistency of his 
publick principles. It was by such means that Fox 
was our leader without election and that Romilly was 
becoming so, and believe me, there is no other process 
by which a leader can be made. 

"With respect to the object of your choice — as a 
piece of humour I consider it quite inimitable, and I 
am sure no one can laugh more heartily than Tierney 
himself in his sleeve as Leader of the Whigs ; indeed his 
commentary upon the proceeding is very intelligibly, 




SIR sa:muel ROM illy. 



\To face p. 290. 



iSi7-i8.] OBJECTIONS TO TIERNEY. 291 

as well as funnily, displayed by his administering a 
kind of Luddite test to you, which having once signed, 
you are bound to your captain for better and for 
worse. , . ." 

Follows a very long survey of Tierney's public 
career from 1793 onwards, and an expression of 
opinion that his opposition to Fox, his defence of the 
East India Company, &c., &c., had for ever disqualified 
him for the post to which he had been elected. 



( 292 ) 



CHAPTER Xni. 

1819-1820. 

There is almost a blank in Mr. Creevey's correspond- 
ence during 1819, in which year he continued to live 
in Brussels. This is the more to be regretted because 
the fragments which remain are lively and full of 
gossip. 

Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey. 

"St. James Square, 19th Jan., 1819. 

"... I suspect that which you heard of the pay- 
ment of cash at the bank will not be fulfilled this year, 
tho' an impression has been made on the country by 
the executions for forgery, and on the great body 
of retail traders by the forgeries themselves.* . . . 
Tierney moves on the subject on the ist of next Feby., 
and so changed is the opinion on the subject since 
you were among us, that it is selected, and wisely 
selected, as the most popular question for Opposition 
to begin with. The Annual Parliaments and Universal 
Suffrage men are at a discount : Ministers worse than 
ever, and the Whigs, tho' better than I have remem- 
bered them for some years, far from being in a con- 
dition to lead with any degree of certainty publick 

* Between the suspension of cash payments by the Bank in 
February, 1797, and February, 18 18, three hundred and thirteen 
persons were sentenced to death for forgery ; whereas during the 
fourteen years, 1783-96, preceding such suspension the convictions had 
only been three in number. During the six years, 1812-18, no less 
than 131,361 notes, varying in value from ,,^1 to ^20, were detected as 
forgeries on presentation for payment. 



i8i9-2o.] LORD HOLLAND UPON THE SITUATION. 293 

opinion and confidence, though I think they are, of 
the three parties, that to which the publick just now 
look most sanguinely for assistance in accomplishing 
their object. What these objects are, it is difficult to 
conjecture or define, and perhaps the very indistinct- 
ness of them will lead the publick to be disappointed 
with parties and men. But that there is great ex- 
pectation that much can, ought and will be done in 
Parliament is clear beyond doubt, and moreover that 
expectation, if uncertain and even impracticable in its 
direction, is grounded on causes that lie too deep to 
be easily removed. . . . There is a wonderful change 
in the feelings, opinions, condition, property and rela- 
tive state of the classes in society. The House of 
Commons hangs yet more loosely upon parties, and 
certainly on the Ministerial party, than the last ; and 
the Ministers, exclusive of many grounds of dissension 
among themselves (which are suspected, but may not 
be true),* are evidently aware and afraid of the dis- 
positions of the new Parliament. The Lords and 
Grooms of the Windsor establishment have received 
notice to quit, and no notice of pensions. Some say 
that they will muster an opposition to retrenchment 
in the Lords, which may lead to a dispute between 
the two Houses. Had they any spirit or talent as well 
as ill-humour, our Ultra's might worry the Ministers 
on this subject not a little; for what is more profligate 
than to resist all retrenchment at Windsor during 
the Queen's life, and on her death to abandon the 
establishment — so necessary, as they contended, to 
his [the King's] happiness? . . . Brougham is very 
accommodating, but not in such spirits as he was. He 
feels (indeed who does not?) the loss of Romilly doubly 
as the session approaches. . . . That mad fellow 
Verbyst promised to send over the Bipontine edition 
of Plato and L'Enfant's Council of Pisa. He received 
144 franks for the first — so for the last. He wrote 
to say that if he could not get the books, he would 

* Here speaks the old politician, wary from experience. When 
was there ever a Ministry about which rumours of internal dissension 
were not circulated and eagerly believed ^ In Lord Liverpool's Cabinet 
the great question of Roman Catholic Emancipation continued to be 
treated as an open one, and Ministers voted as they pleased. 



294 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

return the money : he has done neither. I should 
prefer the books. Pray see him and make him do one 
or other. . . ." 



Earl of Lauderdale to Mr. Creevey. 

" London, no date [1819]. 

". . . Lord Lascelles' son has married Harriet 
Wilson's sister: Lord Langford's — an old wretch of 
the name of Aylmer, and there are some people who 
express a dread that young Whitbread will marry a 
woman who lives with him. Lord Byron's poem,* 
which I brought to England, is returned to Venice. 
Murray the Bookseller is afraid of printing it. Rogers's 
Poem, entitled * Human Life,' is favorably talked of. 
Poor man, he treats himself upon these occasions as 
a woman does : he has shut himself up, and seems to 
think it necessary not to go out till his month is up." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" 5, Hill St, no date [1819]. 
"My dear C, 

" You talk like an idiot — a Liverpolian — a con-^ 
centric — a Pautriot (quid plura ?) in all you say about 
the Jerseys. I appeal to Bennet who was present when 
Lady Jersey said how delighted she would be to see 
you at Middleton. But suppose I had said you would 
go with me, and had written to her the day before — 
that would have been quite sufficient. Rely upon me 
— I am the last and shyest man in the world to do 
these things at such places as Holland House, Chats- 
worth, Croxteth, &c., but I am on a footing of friend- 
ship with the Jerseys as intimate as if I were a 
brother, and I know them thoroughly, and you may 
trust me. But a cross accident has for the present 
delayed it all. The D. of York goes there the i6th, 
instead of the 6th (as he had said), so our party (Sefton, 

* Don Juan. 



I8I9-20.] DEATH OF GEORGE III. 295 

Thanet, Ossy,* &c.) is put off. Then Sefton is engaged 
to [illegible] on the 20th, and to Sir H. Featherstone 
25th (pray mention this visit to him when you write) ; 
therefore we talk of Middleton the end of Jany. or 
beginning of Feby." 

At the end of 1819 or beginning of 1820 Mr. Creevey 
returned to England, after an absence, apparently con- 
tinuous, of six years. In the interval he had lost his 
seat for Thetford, and, by the death of his wife, his 
income had fallen from a very comfortable figure to 
extremely narrow dimensions. On 29th January the 
long reign of George III. came to a close. The reign, 
indeed, had ended ten years before, when the Regency 
was proclaimed, and the old king had passed the rest 
of his days in hopeless, but harmless, insanity, and 
bereft of sight. When it became apparent that his 
end was at hand, the party of the Princess of Wales 
perceived necessity for her immediate return to 
England, inasmuch as the life of the Regent seemed 
not much better than that of his father. The Princess 
had been wandering over Europe and the East, giving 
rise to flagrant scandal by her irregular mode of life. 
When her husband became King, his Government 
offered her ;^5o,ooo a year to renounce her title of 
Queen and live abroad ; but, acting under the advice 
of Brougham, she declined this, returned to London, 
and the consequence was the trial for divorce which 
occupied so much of Creevey's time and corre- 
spondence during the year. Meanwhile he paid 
a visit under Brougham's auspices to Lady Jersey 
at Middleton. From this time forward, his second 
step-daughter. Miss Elizabeth Ord — "Bessy" and 
" Barry " of a thousand letters — became his constant 
correspondent. 

* Lord Ossulston. 



296 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord, 

" Middleton [Lord Jersey's], Jan. 21, 1820. 

"... We got to Cashiobury [Lord Essex's] at 
J past five on Wednesday, too late to see the outside 
of the house, and were shown into a most comfortable 
library — a beautiful room 50 feet in length, full of 
books and every comfort. . . . We passed a most 
agreeable evening. I did not see the flower garden, 
which is the great lion of the place. Brougham and I 
had a most agreeable drive here, not the less so to me 
from the extraordinary friendliness of him. . . . We 
arrived here yesterday at five. We found only Lord 
Foley and Berkeley Craven, and they are gone this 
morning, so we compose only a quartette. The house 
is immensely large, apparently, for I have not seen it 
all, and cannot get out for the immense fall of snow 
during the night. ..." 

" 23rd January. 

". . . Shall I tell you what Lady Jersey is like? 
She is like one of her numerous gold and silver musical 
dickey birds, that are in all the shew rooms of this 
house. She begins to sing at eleven o'clock, and, with 
the interval of the hour she retires to her cage to rest, 
she sings till 12 at night without a moment's interrup- 
tion. She changes her feathers for dinner, and her 
plumage both morng. and eveng. is the happiest and 
most beautiful I ever saw. Of the merits of her songs 
I say nothing till we meet. In the meantime I will 
say that I presume we are getting on, for this morning 
her ladyship condescended to give me two fingers to 
shake, and last night asked me twice to give her my 
verses on the Duke of Northumberland, as she had 
mislaid and could not find the copy Gertrude Bennet 
had given her. ..." 

" Liverpool, Jan. 30. 

". . . What think you of the accounts of the King? 
He is, I apprehend, rapidly approaching to his death — 
and then for the Queen and Bruffam ! I did not tell 
you the other day, he has now in his possession the 
proper instrument signed by herself, appointing him 





^ 


1 


m 


i 


i 


^\l 


4 ^ 


f 

f 


^^^ 




r 


Wm 




« 


l« 


■ 


"• 


1 




H^ 


1 ^' ^1 


k 




r « 


•* 


i 


-S 


1 




H. '*^ V 






i^H 


4'« _ ', 




J 


1 






'^ 


1 


»j 


R. 




^^^^^^K#:^ 






^jL' 


^ 


9 


^9 






^■i^<^.. 


A 




^^^0^ 




1 


a 




^ 


>j^^ 


.^ J 




'^ 






1 


r 








'^^^K^'^// 


• •' 'rf 


^ ' '^ 




1- 


%■' 


1 


1 


'i 


i 


r'^^m 


f' 








.^ 


V 


./^ 


1 


■ 




( 










\ 


7 A 

"v '-/^ 


1 






1 














d 


l/f 


jl^ 








SARAH, COUNTESS OF JERSEY. 



\To face p. 296. 



i8i9-3o.] QUEEN CAROLINE REAPPEARS. 297 

her Attorney-General. The moment she is Queen — 
that is, the moment the breath is out of the King's 
body — this gives Bruffam instant rank in his profession, 
such as silk gown, precedence, &c., &c., in defiance of 
King, Chancellor and all the world, besides its im- 
portance in the public eye." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Hill St., 5th Feb. 

"Dear C, 

" Your advice has been followed by anticipa- 
tion (to speak Irish); at this moment my courier is 
within a couple of days' journey of the Queen. He 
was despatched on Sunday, for I had early notice 
from the D. of Sussex * coming to my bedside at 2 in 
the morning. The courier (Sicard) was with me by 
7, and after some delay for a passport from the r. 
Minister, he was off. He took my appointment and 
Denman's as Atty. and Solr. General, as I did not like 
to use the blank one I have with me. He also took a 
letter from me, giving her no choice, but commanding 
her instantly to set out by land, and be at Brussells or 
Paris or Calais immediately. Then she will demand 
a yatch. 

" Now — the young King f has been as near death 
as any man but poor Kent ever was before — 150 oz. 
of blood let have saved his precious life. I never 
prayed so heartily for a Prince before. If he had 
gone, all the troubles of these villains X went with 
him, and they had Fred. I. § their own man for his life 
— i.e. a shady Tory-professional King, who would have 
done a job or two for Lauderdale, smiled on Lady 
JJ]ersey], been civil at Holland House, and shot Tom 
Coke's II legs and birds, without ever deviating right 
hand or left, or giving them,1[ politically, the least 

* About the King's danger. 

t Young, not in years, but in reign. It was just a week since the 
accession. 
X Ministers. 
§ The Duke of York. 

II Of Holkham, created Earl of Leicester in 1S37. 
\\ Ministers. 



298 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

annoyance. This King they will have too, for the 
present man can't long survive. He (Fred. I.) won't 
live long either ; * that Prince of Blackguards ' Brother 
William ' is as bad a life,t so we come in the course 
of nature to be assassinated by King Ernest I. or 
Regent Ernest. :|: 

" Meanwhile, the change of name which Mrs. P. § 
has undergone has had a wondrous effect on publick 
feeling. She is extremely popular. . . . The cry at the 
Proclamation was God save the Queen ! but Perry 
durst not put it in his paper, tho' with the respect- 
ability which belongs to Mackintosh's gent of the 
Daily Press. He told me all this in private. 

" The rage of the new monarch against Leach and 
Eldon and Co. exceeds all bounds. He finds he has 
now a Queen in possession to {illegible], she having 
70 places (some of them very fat ones) to give away. 
I think of making her replace or offer to replace all 
the old Queen's pensioned household, to save salaries, 
and stop the mouths of a few courtiers, who will soon 
find out that she has every virtue. 

" Yours, 
. " H. B." 

The demise of the Monarch rendered necessary, 
according to the constitutional law of those days, a 
dissolution of Parliament, and this was accordingly 
effected by Royal Proclamation on 29th February. 
Mr. Creevey was returned for the borough of 
Appleby, by favour of his friend the Earl of Thanet. 
Mr. Wilbraham, writing to Lord Colchester, the 
former Speaker, observed : " I see no material change 
in your old dominions, the House of Commons, which 
is constituted of much the same materials as the last, 
with the addition of Creevey, who has become a great 
orator in his old age." 

* He died in 1827. 

t The Duke of Clarence [William IV.]. 

X The Duke of Cumberland. 

§ The Princess of Wales, who had become Queen Caroline. 



l8i9-2o.] DISSENSION IN THE OPPOSITION. 299 

The profit which " the Mountain " had been wait- 
ing so long and impatiently to derive from the return 
of Queen Caroline turned to ashes in their hands. 
Popular sympathy, indeed, was vehemently — danger- 
ously — in her favour, and the name of George IV. had 
only to be mentioned to create a hostile manifestation. 
So far so good, from the Mountain's point of view ; 
but, on the other hand, the question thus revived only 
made more manifest the schism in the Opposition. 
Lord Grey and the Old Whigs shrank from espousing 
the cause of the Queen, which, however just it might 
be, was in truth exceedingly humiliating and even un- 
savoury. Holland House held aloof from the move- 
ment, and there appears in consequence a marked 
change in the references by Creevey and his friends 
to that great Whig rendezvous and its inmates. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Liverpool, 24th July. "\ 

". . . As for the wretched dirt and .'meanness of 
Holland House, it makes me perfectly sick. I have 
had the same story from Brougham some months 
back, who was then himself a competitor with 
Mackintosh for an epitaph upon poor Fox's tomb- 
stone. He repeated to me the thing got up by 
Mackintosh, which was fifty thousand times inferior 
to the lowest ballad in favor of the Queen. But 
Holland House has quite made up [its mind that the 
two great and brilliant features of Fox's publick life 
(his resistance to the war upon America and the 
glorious fight which he made single-handed against 
helping the Bourbons to trample on the French 
nation) shall never have the sanction of either my 
lady or Mackintosh to appear in his history, and 
all this, least it might interfere with any arrange- 
ment This is the true history of this despicable 
twaddling. . , ." 



500 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 



The Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. '■ 

". . . Have you heard of the competition about 
the inscription for Fox's monument? Nothing can 
be more ridiculous than the intrigues about it at 
Holland House. Mackintosh's was preferred there 
to Grey's, tho' by all accounts it was great trash and 
Grey's very good. Lady H. found fault with the 
latter, and it was agreed that Mrs. Fox's opinion 
should be asked. She answered in Ly. H.'s words, 
and showed plainly she had been prepared with a 
reply. The end is, the monument is to be without 
any inscription but C. J. Fox. Can you conceive, 
in times like these, such stuff being made of im- 
portance?" 

In regard to the proceedings of and against Queen 
Caroline, which formed the chief topic of public 
interest and gossip after the elections were decided, 
there is a vast amount of correspondence among Mr. 
Creevey's papers. He seems to have mistrusted 
Brougham throughout, who, of course, can be easily 
perceived, at this distance of time, to have behaved 
with the utmost cynicism, and to have treated the 
Queen and her cause as so much capital, to be turned 
to profit for his party, and, above all, for himself. 
Creevey seems to have been swayed alternately by 
indignation at Brougham's insincerity and admiration 
for his sagacity and rhetoric. 

The facts of the case are matters of well-known 
history. It is only expedient to recapitulate the chief 
stages in the melancholy story, and to extract from 
Creevey's daily letters during the trial those passages 
which bring the tragic scene most vividly before the 
reader. 

The reports of the Princess of Wales's proceedings 



lSi9-20.] DOES BROUGHAM RUN STRAIGHT? 301 

in the south of Europe, notably of the familiar terms 
to which she habitually admitted a male servant 
named Bergami, had become so persistent and specific 
that they could no longer be disregarded. So, at 
least, thought the Prince Regent and his Ministers. 
Accordingly in 1818 a commission was appointed and 
sent into Germany and Italy to collect such evidence 
as might afford ground for a divorce. The matter 
was of the greater gravity inasmuch as infidelity on 
the part of the Queen Consort or wife of the Heir 
Apparent constituted high treason and was punish- 
able by death. 

In June, 18 19, Brougham made a proposal to Lord 
Liverpool on behalf, but without the knowledge, of 
the Princess of Wales, binding her to reside per- 
manently abroad and never to assume the rank and 
title of Queen of England, on condition that her 
allowance of ;^35,ooo a year should be secured to her 
for life, instead of terminating with the demise of the 
Crown. Lord Liverpool replied that there would be 
no unwillingness to treat on these terms, if her Royal 
Highness gave her approval to them. Needless to 
say that such a proposal, coming from the Princess's 
principal legal adviser at such a time, or, indeed, at 
any time, was considered tantamount to an acknow- 
ledgment of her guilt, or, at least, want of confidence 
in her defence. 

In September of that year Brougham desired the 
Princess to meet him at Lyons, but although she 
went there and waited for him several weeks, he 
never took the trouble to keep the appointment, and 
no consultation took place between them upon the 
negotiation with Lord Liverpool. 

On the accession of George IV. Caroline became 



302 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

de facto Queen of England. The King pressed 
vehemently that she should be brought to trial ; his 
Ministers shrank from the obloquy which would fall 
upon the Crown whatever might be the result of 
such a trial. The King exercised his prerogative in 
forbidding the Queen's name to be printed in the 
Liturgy, and that she should be named in the public 
prayers of the Established Churches. 

On 15th April Lord Liverpool communicated to 
Brougham an offer identical with Brougham's of the 
previous year, except that the allowance to be paid 
was increased from ;!^3 5,000 to £"50,000 a year. One 
of the least defensible points in Brougham's conduct 
in regard to this case was that he neither communi- 
cated this proposal to Queen Caroline, nor, on the 
other hand, informed the Cabinet that it had not been 
made known to her Majesty. 

In March Queen Caroline published a manifesto 
in the newspapers, setting forth some of her griev-^ 
ances ; in May she began to travel north, and invited 
Brougham to meet her, which he did, accompanied 
by Lord Hutchinson, at Saint Omer, on 3rd June. 
Brougham made known to the Queen that Hutchinson 
was charged with certain proposals on her behalf 
from the Government, namely, the terms which 
Brougham ought to have made known to her long 
before. These terms having been submitted to her 
Majesty, she emphatically refused them, acting under 
Brougham's advice. 

Leaving Brougham at Saint Omer, the Queen, 
accompanied by Alderman Wood and his son, Lady 
Anne Hamilton, and a person named Austin, sailed 
from Calais, and landed at Dover on 6th June. She 
was received by a royal salute from the garrison, and 



iSi9-20.] THE QUESTION OF THE LITURGY. 303 

travelled to London in a kind of triumphal procession, 
arriving there the following day. The mob were 
vehemently in her favour ; all houses were illuminated 
— some from sympathy, many out of fear that the 
windows would be smashed in, and the most crying 
scandal of the nineteenth century was well under 
way. Lord Liverpool brought a message to the 
House of Lords from the King, announcing that his 
Majesty " thinks it necessary, in consequence of the 
arrival of the Queen, to communicate to the House of 
Lords certain papers respecting the conduct of her 
Majesty since her departure from this Kingdom, 
which he recommends to the immediate and serious 
attention of the House." A similar message was 
communicated to the House of Commons by Lord 
Castlereagh. Negotiations with the Queen were 
opened in order to induce her to leave the country 
quietly, Lords Fitzwilliam and Sefton being appointed 
to act for her Majesty, the Duke of Wellington and 
Lord Castlereagh for the King's Government. This 
stamped the proceedings emphatically as a party 
contest, and this character was further emphasised 
later by the substitution of Messrs. Brougham and 
Denman, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General to 
the Queen, for the two Whig Lords. 

After five days' conference, the negotiations broke 
down upon the question of restoring to the Liturgy 
the name of " our most gracious Queen Caroline." 
Upon that point King George was inflexible. When 
Brougham insisted upon it, " You might as easily 
move Carlton House," said Castlereagh. The fer- 
ment out-of-doors was mounting and spreading. 
Meetings were got up all over the country to protest 
against the persecution of the Queen. There was no 



304 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

regular police force in London at this time ; * the 
Guards were relied upon for maintaining public 
order, but the Guards had shown strong partiality 
for the Queen against the Government, and one 
battalion was in actual mutiny. On 19th June a 
debate arose in the House of Commons upon the 
King's refusal to restore his Consort's name to the 
Liturgy, in the course of which Denman used words 
which found an echo in millions of hearts throughout 
the realm. It had been urged from the Treasury 
Bench that even though the Queen was not mentioned 
by name in the Liturgy, she might be held as included 
in the general prayer for the royal family. " If her 
Majesty," retorted Denman, "is included in any 
general prayer, it is in the prayer for all who are 
desolate and oppressed." 

On 5th July Lord Liverpool introduced in the 
Lords a Bill " to deprive her Majesty Queen Caroline 
Amelia Elizabeth of the title, prerogative rights, 
privileges and exemptions of Queen Consort of this 
realm, and to dissolve the marriage between his 
Majesty and the said Caroline Amelia Elizabeth." 

The second reading was taken in the Lords on 
17th August, and showed a singular combination of 
judicial and parliamentary procedure, evidence being 
taken for prosecution and defence, and the verdict 
given in the division on the second reading, which 
did not take place till November, when it was carried 
by 123 votes to 95. 

In Mr. Creevey's daily letters to Miss Ord, from 
which a number of extracts follow, will be found some 
curious personal impressions of the painful scene. 

* The origin of the present police force may be traced in a memo- 
random by the Duke of Wellington upon the situation at this time 
\Civil Despatches, \. 128]. 



i8i9-20.] OPINION AT KNOWSLEY. 305 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Knowsley, 7th August, 1820. 

"... I came here on Saturday. I like Lady Mary * 

better every time I see her. You know what a d d 

ramshackle of a library they have here, so I was 
complaining at breakfast this morning that they had 
no State Trials in the house ; upon which Lady Mary 
said she was sure she could find some, and accord- 
ingly flew from her breakfast and came back in 
triumph at having found them for me. Upon the 
subject of the Queen, my lord and my lady are both 
substantially right, i.e., in thinking there is not a pin to 
chuse between them, and that the latter has been 
always ill-used, and that nobody but the King could 
get redress in such a case against his wife. Little 
Derby goes further than the Countess, when she is 
not by ; but she thinks it proper to deprecate all 
violence, and says, tho' Bennet and I are excellent 
men, and she likes us both extremely, still, that we 
are like Dives, and that Lazarus ought to come 
occasionally and cool our tongues. Is not this the 
image of her? " 

"Liverpool, 1 2th August. 

"I left Knowsley yesterday. Lord Derby has 
received a letter from Lord Roslyn, telling him there 
had been a devil of a blow up between the King and 
Duke of York. The latter wanted to absent himself 
from the approaching trial of the Queen ; I presume 
from feelings of delicacy in his situation as having 
lost his wife.t The King, however, was furious, and 
has commanded the Duke to be present on Thursday. 
... I cannot resist the curiosity of seeing a Queen 
tried. From the House of Lords or from Brooks's 
you shall have a daily account of what passes." 

" London, i6th August, 

"... I am just come from Lord Sefton. 1 learn 
from him that Lord Spencer has had an interview 
with Lord Liverpool, the object of it being friendly 

* Lady Man- Stanley, married the 2nd Earl of Wilton in 1821. 
t The Duchess of York died on 6th August, 1820. 



306 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

on the part of Lord Spencer, at the same time to 
implore Liverpool to pause, and to retract indeed; 
before this terrible work was entered upon. Liver- 
pool was friendly- in return, and quite unreserved. . . . 
Lord Spencer was decidedly of opinion that the very 
openness of the Queen's conduct carried with it her 
acquittal from the supposed crime. This is most 
curious from such a solemn chap as old Spencer. . . ." 

" House of Lords, August i6th. 

"... This is very convenient. There is not onlj^ 
the usual admission for the House of Commons upon 
the [steps of] the Throne,* but pen, ink and paper for 
our accommodation in the long gallery. There is a 
fine chair for the Queen within the bar, to be near her 
counsel and the two galleries. This makes all the 
difference. Two hundred and fifty peers are to 
attend, 60 being excused from age, infirmities, being 
abroad or professing the Catholic faith. 

" Wilberforce told Bennet that the act of his life 
which he most reproached himself with was not 
having moved to restore the Queen to the Liturgy, 
and he was sure this was the only course. Grey says 
the Queen ought to be sent to the Tower for her 
letter to the King. 

'' Here is Castlereagh, smiling as usual, though I 
think awkwardly. . . . Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt has just 
been here and tho' in his official dress as Black Rod, 
was most communicative. He says the Government 
is stark, staring mad ; that they want to prevent his 
receiving the Queen to-morrow at the door as Queen, 
but that he will. ..." 

"17th August. 

". . . Near the House of Lords there is a fence of 
railing put across the street from the Exchequer 
coffee-house to the enclosed garden ground joining to 
St. Margaret's churchyard, through which members 
of both Houses were alone permitted to pass. A 
minute after I passed, I heard an uproar, with hissing 

* In the present House of Lords admission to the steps of the 
throne is restricted to Privy Councillors and sons of Peers ; accom- 
modation being provided elsewhere for the Commons. 



i8i9-20.] OPENING OF THE TRIAL. 307 

and shouting. On turning round I saw it was Wel- 
lington on horseback. His horse made a little start, 
and he looked round with some surprise. He caught 
my eye as' he passed, and nodded, but was evidently 
annoyed. 

" I got easily into the Lords and to a place within 
two yards. of the chair placed for the Queen, on the 
right hand of the throne, close to its steps. They 
proceeded to call over the House and to receive 
excuses from absent peers. As the operation was 
going on, people came in who said the Queen was on 
her way and as far as Charing Cross, Two minutes 
after, the shouts of the populace announced her near 
ap)proach, and some minutes after, two folding doors 
within a few feet of me were suddenly thrown open, 
and in entered her Majesty. To describe to you her 
appearance and manner is far beyond my powers. I 
had been taught to believe she was as much improved 
in looks as in dignity of manners ; it is therefore with 
much pain I am obliged to observe that the nearest 
resemblance I can recollect to this much-injured 
Princess is a toy which you used to call Fanny 
Royds.* There is another toy of a rabbit or a cat, 
whose tail you squeeze under its body, and then out 
it jumps in half a minute off the ground into the air. 
The first of these toys you must suppose to represent 
the person of the Queen ; the latter the manner by 
which she popped all at once into the House, made a 
duck at the throne, another to the Peers, and a con- 
cluding jump into the chair which was placed for her. 
Her dress was black figured gauze, with a good deal 
of trimming, lace, &c. : her sleeves white, and per- 
fectly episcopal ; a handsome white veil, so thick as 
to make it very difficult to me, who was as near to 
her as any one, to see her face ; such a back for 
variety and inequality of ground as you never beheld ; 
with a few straggling ringlets on her neck, which I 
flatter myself from their appearance were not her 
Majesty's own property. 

" She squatted into her chair with such a grace that 
the gown is at this moment hanging over every part 

* A Dutch toy with a round bottom, weighted with lead, so that it 
always jumps erect in whatever position it is laid. 



308 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

of it — both back and elbows. . . . When the Queen 
entered, the Lords (Bishops and all) rose, and then 
they fell to calling over the House again and receiving 
excuses. When the Duke of Sussex's name was called, 
the Chancellor read his letter, begging to be excused 
on the ground of consanguinity ; upon which the Duke 
of York rose, and in a very marked and angry tone 
said : — '/ have much stronger ground for asking leave 
of absence than the Duke of Sussex, and yet I should 
be ashamed not to be present to do my duty!' This 
indiscreet observation (to say no worse of it) was by 
no means well received or well thought of, and when 
the question was put 'that the Duke of Sussex be 
excused upon his letter,* the House granted it with 
scarce a dissentient voice. Pretty well, this, for the 
Duke of York's observation ! 

" Well — this finished, and the order read * that the 
House do proceed with the Bill,' the Duke of Leinster 
rose and said in a purely Irish tone that, without 
making any elaborate speech, and for the purpose of 
bringing this business to a conclusion, he should move 
that this order be now rescinded. Without a word 
from any one on this subject the House divided, we 
members of the Commons House remaining. There 
were 41 for Leinster and 206 (including 17 Bishops) 
against him ; but, what was more remarkable, there 
were 20 at least of our Peers who voted against the 
Duke of Leinster — as Grey, Lansdowne, Derby, Fitz- 
william, Spencer, Erskine, Grafton, de' Clifford, Dar- 
lington, Yarborough, &c. Lord Kenyon and Lord 
Stanhope were the only persons who struck me in 
the Opposition as new. The Duke of Gloucester 
would not vote, notwithstanding cousin York's obser- 
vations. Holland, the Duke of Bedford, old Fortescue, 
Thanet, &c., were of course in the minority. . . . This 
division being over, Carnarvon objected in a capital 
speech to any further proceeding, and was more 
cheered than is usual with the Lords ; but no doubt 
it was from our 40 friends. Then came Grey and I 
think he made as weak a speech as ever I heard : so 
thought Brougham and Denman who were by me. 
He wanted the opinion of the Judges upon the statute 
of Edward HI. as to a Queen's treason, and after 
speeches from Eldon, Liverpool and Lansdowne, 



I8I9-20.] PROCEEDINGS IN THE LORDS. 309 

Grey's motion is acceded to, and the Judges are now 
out preparing their opinion, and all is at a stand. 

" I forgot to say Lady Ann Hamilton *' waits behind 
the Queen, and that, for effect and delicacy's sake, she 
leans on brother Archy's f arm, tho' she is full six feet 
high, and bears a striking resemblance to one of Lord 
Derby's great red deer. Keppel Craven and Sir William 
Gell likewise stand behind the Queen in full dress. . . . 
Lord John Russell J is writing on my right hand, and 
Sir Hussey Vivian § on my left. I have just read over 
my account of the Queen to the latter, and he deposes 
to its perfect truth. 

" I have just given this lad. Lord John, such a fire 
for his buttering of Wilberforce || that he had more 
blood in his little white face than I ever saw before ; 
but all the Russells are excellent, and in my opinion 
there is nothing in the aristocracy to be compared with 
this family." 

" Four o'clock. 

''Well, the Judges returned, as one knew they 
would, saying there was no statute-law or law of the 
land touching the Queen's case. Then counsel were 
called in; upon which the Duke of Hamilton, in a 
most excellent manner, ask'd Mr. Attorney General 
for whom he appeared, or by whose instructions. A 
more gravelling question could not well be put, as 
appeared by Mr. Attorney's manner. He shifted and 
shuffled about, and Liverpool helped, and Lord Bel- 
haven ended the conversation by declaring his utter 
ignorance of the prosecution — whether it was by the 
Crown, the Ministers, or the House of Lords. . . . 
There are great crowds of people about the House, 
and all the way up Parliament Street. The Guards, 
both horse and foot, are there too in great numbers, 
but I saw nothing except good humour on all sides. 

* Second daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton. 

t Lord Archibald Hamilton, M.P., second son of the 9th Duke of 
Hamilton. 

X Afterwards Prime Minister ; created Earl Russell in 1861. 

§ Commanded the Light Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo ; created a 
baronet in 1828, and Lord Vivian in 1841. 

II Lord John had written to Wilberforce upon the Queen's trial, 
complimenting him incidentally upon his talents. 



3IO THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

The Civil Power lias regained the Pass of Killiecranky * 
again, but it is fought for every time a carriage 
passes. . . ." 

"Brooks's, 5 o'clock. 

"Brougham in his speech has fired a body blow 
into the Duke of York on Mrs. Clark's affair, which 
has given great offence." 

"York St., 1 8th Aug. 

". . . Brougham's speech (the last hour of which 
I did not hear) is allowed on all hands to have been 
excellent. We had a full Brooks's last night, and much 
jaw ; Grey affable, quite sure the bill will be knocked 
up sooner or later, and offering to take [? lay] ten to 
one it will disappear, even in the Lords, before Satur- 
day fortnight. He knows the cursed folly he committed 
yesterday in forsaking the Duke of Leinster. . . . 
Western is first rate in his decision that it wofCt do, 
and that Grey never can shew his face as a public man 
again. . . ." 

" House of Lords, 12 o'clock. 

". . . Denman is speaking as well as possible, tho' 
I am all against his introducing jokes, which he has 
been doing somewhat too much. I was much aston- 
ished at their lordships being so much and so univer- 
sally tickled as they were by some of his stories. 
Denman, holding the bill in his hand, said : — * Levity 
of manner is one of its charges. Why this charge 
applies to all Royal people : they are all good- 
tempered and playful.' Then he gave a conversation 
which took place between his present Majesty and 
Sam Spring, the waiter at the Cocoa Tree, where 
Sam cracked his jokes and was very familiar with 
the Prince; upon which the latter said: — 'This is 
all very well between you and me, Sam, but beware 
of being equally familiar with Norfolk and Abercorn.' 
All the Lords recognised the story and snorted out 
hugely — Bishops and all. 

"I thought the Lords rose to receive the Queen 
with a better grace to-day than yesterday. Everything 
respecting her coming to the House is now as perfect 
as possible. She has a most superb and beautiful 

* The barrier described on p. 306. 



I 



I8I9-20.] THE CASE FOR THE CROWN. 31 1 

coach with six horses — the coachman driving in a cap, 
like the old king's coachman ; and a good coach of her 
own behind for Craven and Cell. . . ." 

" Brooks's, 5 o'clock. 

". . . Nothing can be more triumphant for the Queen 
than this day altogether. . . . The truth is the Law 
Officers of the Crown are damnably overweighted by 
Brougham and Denman. . . ." 

" House of Lords, 19th August. 

". . . The Queen is not here to-day ; and she does 
not mean to come, I believe, till Tuesday. I am rather 
sorry for this, because there was so very great, and 
so well-dressed, a population in the street to see her 
to-day. Where the devil they all come from, 1 can't 
possibly imagine, but I think the country about Lon- 
don must furnish a great part. It is prodigiously 
encreased since the first day. . . . Now Mr. Attorney 
General has at last begun by opening his case against 
the Queen, and I have heard just one hour of him, and 
then left it. Now her danger begins, and I am quite 
unable to conjecture the degree of damage she will 
sustain from the publication of this opening. I say 
degree, because of course it is quite impossible that a 
very great effect should not be produced upon the 
better orders of people by the production of this 
cursed, disgusting narrative, however overstated it 
may eventually prove to be, and however short (if all 
strictly true) it may fall of the actual crime charged by 
the Bill." 

" Brooks's, 22nd Aug., \ past 4. 

". . . Upon the whole, I hope things are looking 
better for us to-day. The people in the streets were 
numerous, but not so much so as formerly, nor was 
their quality so good. Yesterday's evidence had cer- 
tainly shook her friends — always excepting Lady 
Gwydyr * and her family at their house at Whitehall. 
I stood on Lord Melbourne's steps to see the Queen 
pass, and the Down Gwydyr {alias Eresbyj with all 

* The Dowager Lady Gwydyr was Lady Willoughby d'Eresby and 
joint Great Chamberlain in her own right. 



312 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

her family black as sloes, with weepers, windows 
open, &c., all bowed at once again and again, with an 
awe and devotion as if they had been good Catholicks 
and the Queen the Virgin Mary. . . ." 



" House of Lords, 2Sth Aug., i o'clock. 

" Our matters, so far in the day, stand much better 
than they did at the close of yesterday. The two 
captains, Pechell and Briggs, have been called, and so 
far from proving anything against the Queen, they 
have distinctly sworn there was not the slightest 
impropriety in the conduct of the Queen during the 

geriod she was on board their ships. The fact of 
ergami having come the first time as servant, and 
afterwards sitting at table on board one of these ships, 
was of course proved ; but everybody knew it before, 
and it does not signify a damn. . . . 

" The discovery of this day, viz. that Capts. Briggs 
and Pechell were to be the only English witnesses 
produced against the Queen, was most agreeable and 
unexpected to me, because of a conversation which 
had passed between the Duke of Wellington and 
myself on the subject. The night after I made my 
speech in the House of Commons in support of Genl. 
Ferguson's motion for the production of the Milan 
commission, I saw the Duke at the Argyle Rooms, 
who, with his usual frankness, came up to me and 
said : — ', Well, Creevey ; so you gave us a blast last 
night. Have you seen Leach since ? ' Then we 
talked about the approaching trial with the most 
perfect freedom, and upon my saying their foreign 
evidence would find very few believers in this 
country, he said : — ' Ho ! but we have a great many 
English witnesses — officers ; ' and this, I confess, was 
the thing that always frightened me the most. ... I 
sat between Grey and Sir Robert Wilson * at Sefton's 

f * General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson [i 777-1 849], commonly 
known as " Jaffa Wilson," owing to the charges made against Napoleon 
of cruelty to his prisoners at Jaffa in Wilson's History of the British 
Expedition to Egypt. Having warmly espoused the cause of Queen 
Caroline, he was present at the riot in Hyde Park on the occasion of 
Her Majesty's funeral. Although he was endeavouring to prevent a 



i8i9-2o.] UNFAVOURABLE EVIDENCE. 313 

yesterday, and two greater fools I never saw in all 
my life. The former, in consequence of the day's 
evidence being unfavourable to the Queen, was a 
rigid lover of justice : he did not care a damn about 
the cause : he was come up to do his duty, and should 
act accordingly. Wilson, on the other hand, was 
perfectly certain the Bill would never pass the House 
of Lords, and that, if it did, it must take at least hvo 
years in the Commons. Tierney was more guarded 
in his opinion. He said he had got something in 
his head somehow or other that the Bill would 
never come to us in the House of Commons. So 
much for the chiefs in the Whig camp.* Thanet 
and I agreed afterwards as to their insanity. I dine 
with him and Cowper at Brooks's to-day, and to- 
morrow at the house of the latter to meet the Derbys, 
&c. Western is gone to Fornham [the Duke of 
Norfolk's] to-day. The Duke asked me to come with 
him." 

" Brooks's, 2 o'clock, 26th August. 

" I am just returned from the Lords, and their 
lordships have hampered themselves as with one of 
their own absurdities, that they have adjourned till 
Monday to consider how they are to get out of it. . . . 
I am at this moment the centre of at least a dozen 
lords. You may suppose it is a scrape when Wicked- 
shifts Grey is at this moment grinning from ear to 
ear, and telling me he sees no way out of it but by 
the Lords adjourning the second reading of the bill 
for six months. Old Fitzwilliam tells me he thinks 
little of the chambermaid's evidence ; and, as to that, 
both Grey and King think much less of it than I do. 
Certain it is that Mr. Attorney's perfect incompetence 
to manage a case like this, added to the villainy of 
the Court, gives considerable — indeed a very great — 
advantage to the case of this eternal fool, to call her 
[the Queen] by no worse a name, . . ." 

collision between the Horse Guards and the mob, and despite a long 
record of gallant service in the field, Wilson was dismissed the army 
in 1821, but was reinstated on the accession of W^illiam IV. 

* Nevertheless the chiefs were right — Grey in his resolution to give 
his verdict according to the evidence, Tierney in predicting that the 
Bill would never reach the Commons. 



314 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

, " House of Lords, 3 o'clock, 28th August. 
"... I met Lady Charlotte Greville in the street 
yesterday, and walked a little with her, when I found 
her fury against Brougham to be perfectly unbounded. 
I told her her state of mind was everything I could 
wish, and so I left her. There is a report about, said 
to rest on good authority, that the King sent for the 
Duke of York yesterday, and that he wants to go to 
Hanover,* leaving the Duke Regent 

" House of Lords, 29th August, 5 o'clock. 

" Here's a capital scene such as I never saw before. 
Always keep in mind the point in discussion — viz. 
whether Brougham should have a little cross-exami- 
nation now, and an unlimited one hereafter. This 
was conceded to him early on Saturday — refused 
yesterday, and to-day Harrowby begins by moving 
that, under the peculiar circumstances. Brougham 
shall have an unlimited cross-examination both now 
and hereafter. This motion was opposed by Lord 
Eldon, and a division has just taken place, when 
Harrowby's motion was carried by 121 to 106. The 
three law lords — Eldon, Redesdale, and Manners — the 
two Royal Dukes — York and Clarence — and all the 
King's friends were in the minority, and Sidmouth 
was the only other member of the Cabinet besides 
Eldon who voted against Harrowby's motion. Our 
people of course voted with Harrowby. Was there 
ever such a state of things?. . ." 

"House of LordSjb o'clock, ist Sept., 1820, ' 

The chienne Demont t turns out everything one 
could wish on her cross-examination. Her letters 
have been produced written to her sister living still 
in the Queen's service. . . . They contain every kind 
of panegyric upon the Queen, and she often writes of 
a journal or diary she has kept of everything that has 
occurred during the whole of her service and travels 

* George IV. was hereditary sovereign of Hanover as well as of 
Great Britain and Ireland. 

t Former fentme-de-chatnbre to the Princess of Wales (Queen 
Caroline), an important witness for the prosecution. 



i8i9-20.] LOUISE DEMONT. 315 

with the Queen ; the object of such journal being, as 
she says, to do the Queen justice, and to show how 
she was received, applauded, cherished, wherever she 
went. At length she writes— 'Judge of my astonish- 
ment at an event that happened to me the other day. 
A person called upon me at Lausanne, and said he 
wished to speak to me alone. I brought him up into 
my chamber : he gave me a letter : I broke the seal. 
It was a request that I would come immediately to 
England under the pretext of being a governess : that 
I should have the first protection : that it would make 
my fortune. True it is, there was no signature to the 
letter, but as a proof of its validity I had an imme- 
diate credit given me on a banker.' The Attorney- 
General here objected to this evidence. . . ." 

" I past 3. 
" The House put a question to the Judges whether 
these letters could be read in evidence, and they 
decided they could not unless Demont admitted them 
to be her handwriting. They have just been put 
into her hands, and she has admitted them all to be 
hers. . . ." 

" 5 o'clock. 

"Adjourned ... a most infernally damaging day 
for the prosecution. . . ." 

" House of Lords, 2 o'clock, 2nd Sept. ' 

"The chienne Demont is still under her cross- 
examination, and is, if possible, fifty times nearer the 
devil to-day than she was yesterday. ... I have told 

Sou, I believe, that the Bishops won't support the 
>ivorce part of the Bill, and that in consequence it is 
to be withdrawn ; so that the title of the Bill ought 

to be — ' A Bill to declare the Queen a w , and to 

settle her upon the King for life, because from his 
own conduct he is not entitled to a divorce.' " 

*• House of Lords, Sept. 4, 3 o'clock. 
"Here's a fellow examining who says he came on 
Saturday night with eleven others, so it can't close so 
soon as I had thought. We are still in the dark as 



3l6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

to the Lugano devil being included in this arrival 
He is the fellow Brougham has always been the most 
afraid of: however, he has just told me there are such 

E roofs of the high price his evidence is to cost, that 
e thinks he shall do for him. . . ." 

" Brooks's, 5 o'clock. 

" Eleven witnesses examined to-day : much diti 
and some damage certainly." 

" House of Lords, Sept. 6. 
"... Do you know this bill will never pass ! My 
belief is it will be abandoned on the adjournment. 
The entire middle order of people are against it, and 
are daily becoming more critical on the King and the 
Lords for carrying on this prosecution." 

" ^ past two. 
" By far the most infamous act that even this jury 
of the Lords ever committed has just been done by 
them. The Judges, after three hours' consultation, 
decided that a particular question, proposed by 
Brougham, could not be put. Lord Buckingham has 
just put the same question thinking it would damage 
the Queen. No one objected. The answer was 
given, and compleatly the reverse of what Lord B. 
expected. Then Brougham rose and with great 
gravity said : — * My lords, I humbly request your 
lordships to accept my thanks for having permitted 
a member of your own House to put a question 
which, only two hours ago, after great deliberation 
and consultation with the Judges, you refused to 
me.' Not a word or a sound was heard in answer 
to this knock-down blow from Bruffam. He told 
me afterwards that it was by his own address and 
personal application to Lord Buckingham that the 
latter was mduced to put the question. . . ." 

" \ past 4. 
" The evidence is closed — that is, all that is in 
England. Mr. Attorney has been making his appli- 
cation for an adjournment of a few days to give time 
for the Lugano witnesses to arrive. Brougham's 



I8I9-20.] THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL SUMS UP. 317 

objection to this has been the feeblest effort he has yet 
made, and Mr. Attorney is now replying. I suppose 
it will be granted, and this will fill up the measure 
of their lordships' iniquity. 

" P.S. — Erskine has made the inosi beautiful speech 
possible : Grey an excellent one : Eldon and Liver- 
pool are shook, and I think the application will be 
refused." 

" Brooks's, Sept. 6, 12 o'clock at night. 

" I have been dining to-day at Lord Sefton's with 
the Duke of Bedford, Lords Grey, Thanet, Cowper 
and Foley, Brougham, &c. Grey was a decided 
lunatic at dinner, and so Brougham and I settled 
him in a walk we had together. Brougham is quite 
aware of the prodigious part he has to play upon 
this approaching speech of his, and I have been try- 
ing all 1 can to make him connect himself with public 
opinion as far as he can consistently with propriety 
and the dignity of his situation. 

" House of Lords, 12 o'clock, 7th Sept. 

" The first thing done to-day was Mr. Attorney 
coming forward and stating that within the preced- 
ing half hour he had received letters from abroad, 
stating that the journey of the Lugano witnesses 
was unavoidably delayed, and that under such cir- 
cumstances he should not persist in asking for time. 
So, after this infernal lie, he said his case was closed. 
. . . Mr, Solicitor is now summing up. 

*' Here's a breeze ! The Solicitor having finished, 
Lauderdale moved that the Queen's counsel be asked 
if they were ready to go on, upon which Lord Lons- 
dale begged to state that, before such question was 
put, it would be a great satisfaction to him and others 
to learn that the divorce part of the Bill was to be 
given up ; upon which Lord Liverpool said if it was 
the wish of the religious part of the House and of the 
community that this clause should be withdrawn, his 
Majesty had no personal wish in having it made part 
of the bill. . . . Well ! Grey made a speech for the 
divorce part remaining! and Donoughmore is now 
asserting with great fury that Liverpool has given 
the King's consent without his leave." 



3l8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

« 8th Sept. 

". . . It is said Ministers are quite determined not 
to let Brougham open his case now. For the first 
time, he buHied the Lords a little too much yester- 
day ; so much so, that he has turned Carnarvon quite 
violently against him ; vvrhich is a very great pity, 
because he is so eminently useful. 

" I had a most agreeable day yesterday at 
Cow^per's, the company being the Derbys, Jerseys, 
Lansdownes, Grey, Thanet and Erskine. It was my 
good fortune to sit next the latter, and he was as 
lively and as much the soul of the company at 72 as 
he could have been at 32. . . . You know the Queen 
went down the river yesterday. I saw her pass the 
H. of Commons on the deck of her state barge ; the 
river and the shores of it were then beginning to fill. 
Erskine, who was afterwards at Blackfriars Bridge, 
said he was sure there were 200,000 people collected 
to see her. . . . There was not a single vessel in the 
river that did not hoist their colours and man their 
yards for her, and it is with the greatest difficulty 
that the watermen on the Thames, who are all her 
partisans, are kept from destro3ang the hulk which 
lies off the H. of Commons to protect the witnesses 
in Cotton Garden. ... I dine to-day at Sefton's : only 
Brougham and myself. ..." 

" House of Lords, 8th Sept., i o clock. 

". . . Liverpool is now speaking against Grey, 
and when the debate is to end I know not, but 
Brougham has just called me out to consult with me. 
The Queen, backed by Wood, is all for going on de 
suite, and, as Brougham thinks, the decided plan is 
to fling her counsel overboard. In this situation of 
peril for the idiot, Brougham thinks of asking only 
till Monday fortnight to be ready to go on with his 
defence. . . ." 

" Brooks's, Sept. 9th. 

"The House of Lords is adjourned to Tuesday 
three weeks, the 3rd of October. You can form no 
conception of the rage of the Lords at Brougham 
fixing this time : it interferes with everything — 



18I9-20.] THE DIVORCE CLAUSE ABANDONED. 319 

pheasant shooting, Newmarket, &c., &:c. . . . Grey is 
just set out for Howick, the most furious of the set. 
. . . Brougham's chaise is now at the door to carry 
him home to Brougham Castle. He has performed 
miracles, and the reasons he has just been giving me 
for fixing the time he has done, shew his understand- 
ing (if one doubted it) to be of the very first order. 
The Queen is delighted at their going on so soon : 
she clapped her hands with delight when he com- 
municated it to her last night. . . ." 



Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Buxton, loth Sept. 

". . . The abandonment of the divorce clause 
forms the ultimate climax of baseness, cowardice, 
folly, &c. It is a Bill of Pains and Penalties upon the 
King, to expose him to the most dire disgrace that 
ever was inflicted upon mortal man — to enact that, 
whereas his wife is the most abandoned of women, he 
is a fit associate for her! Oh, there never was the 
like !!!..." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Brougham, 14 Sept., 1820. 

"Dear C, 

". . . Either you or Bennet should by all 
means ask a question respecting the two late outrages 
in Scotland committed by Sir Alexr. Gordon and his 
son Mr. James Gordon. These two worthies being 
at Crossmichael church one Sunday, and observing 
the parson, Mr. Jeffrey, pray for the Queen, they 
caused a vestry (kirk session) to be held instanter; 
and, there being no further notice, they two and the 
parson were the only members present ; whereupon, 
by a majority of 2 to i, they recorded a censure on 
him and an order against ever again praying for the 
Queen by name ! The Presbytery, being the ordinary 
ecclesl. jurisdn., immediately took it up, revised the 
whole proceeding, and have ordered the parties to 
appear before them — I suppose to be censured. 



320 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

Again : the son, James Gordon, being Col. of a 
Yeomanry corps lately on duty, the chaplain, Mr. 
Gillespie (whom I have known for many years, and 
who is a man of admirable character and perfect 
loyalty)^ preached a very loyal discourse, but prayed 
for the Q. The Col. put him under arrest ! The 
ecclesl. authorities have taken this matter up, and I 
suppose (indeed it is quite clear) must take Gillespie's 
part strongly. But why do I specify these two 
matters ? Because y«s. Gordon is a judge in Scotland, 
and an ecclesiastical one : viz. one of the Commis- 
saries who are the 3 Judges of the supreme Con- 
sistorial Court at Edinr. . . . You are aware that the 
Scotch Church acknowledge no head but J. Christ — 
utterly denies the Kind's or Parlt.'s right to interfere 
in any respect, and rejects with the utmost indigna- 
tion all attempts (which, since the aboln. of Epis- 
copacy, indeed, have never been made) to dictate, or 
even hint at, any form of prayers, each parson being 
left wholly to himself, except as far as the Church 
Courts (viz. Presbytery, Synod and General As- 
sembly) may regulate their doctrine and discipline. 
Now a question ought to be asked on this Gordon's 
conduct. . . ." 



Mr. Crecvey to Miss Ord. 

" Brooks's, 13 Sept. 

*'. . . Do you know they say the King is intent 
upon turning out Lord Hertford to make room for 
Conyngham as Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Chol- 
mondeley to make way for Lord Roden. Was there 
ever such insanity at such a time? It is said the 
Ministers have exacted a promise from him not to 
make the first change, at least pending the trial. In 
writing the last sentence, I heard a noise of hurraing 
and shouting in the street ; so I ran out to see. It 
was, I may say, the Navy of England marching to 
Brandenburgh House with an address to the Queen. 
I have seen nothing like this before — nothing ap- 
proaching to it. There were thousands of seamen, 
all well dressed, all sober — the best-looking, the finest 
men you could imagine. Every man had a new white 



38J9-20.] BROUGHAM OPENS THE DEFENCE. 32I 

silk or satin cockade in his hat. They had a hundred 
colours, at least, or pieces of silk, with sentiments 
upon them, such as 'Protection to the Innocent,' &c. 
M'Donald asked one of them how many there were, 
to which he answered very civilly — ' I don't know, 
■exactly, sir, but we are many thousands, and should 
have been many more, but we would not let any man 
above forty come, because we have so far to walk.' 
Remember what I say — this procession decides the 
fate of the Queen. When the seamen take a part, the 
soldiers can't fail to be shaken." 



" House of Lords, October 3rd, i o'clock. 

". . . Brougham has been at it nearly two hours 
snd a half, and may continue an hour or two more, 
for aught I know ; but it is infinitely too hot to stay 
in the crowd, so I have just escaped. ... I think 1 
may say he was as good as I expected. . .' ." 

" 4 o'clock. 

"He has been at it again two hours, and will 
evidently be so till five — criticism in detail upon the 
evidence for the prosecution — damned dull and 
damned hot, so I have been walking about amongst 
my friends on Westminster Bridge." 



** House of Lords, Oct. 4, {? past I. 

"Brougham has just finished his opening. . . . 1 
never heard him anything like the perfection he has 
displayed in all ways. ... In short, if he can prove 
what he has stated in his speech, I for one believe she 
is innocent, and the whole case a conspiracy. . . . He 
concluded with a most magnificent address to the 
Lords — an exhortation to them to save themselves — 
the Church — the Crown— the Country, by their 
decision in favour of the Queen. This last appeal 
was made with great passion, but without a particle 
of rant. ... I consider myself infinitely overpaid by 
these two hours and a half of Brougham, for all the 
time and money it has cost me to be here, and almost 
for my absence from all of you. ..." 



THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cii. XIII. 



" Oct. 5th. 

"... I had a very agreeable day at Powell's with 
the Duke of Norfolk, who called for me here, and we 
walked there together. We went to Brooks's at 
night, where, as you may suppose, the monde talked 
of nothing but Brougham and his fame, and the 
comers-in from White's said the same feeling was 
equally strong there. . . . [The speech] not only as- 
tonished but has shaken the aristocracy, though Lord 
Granville did tell me at parting this morning not to 
be too confident of that, for that the H. of Lords was 
by far the stupidest and most obstinate collection of 
men that could be selected from all England. This, I 
think, from a peer himself, and old virtuoso Stafford's 
brother, was damned fair. . . . General St. Leger was 
called, and was only useful as a very ornamental 
witness. . . . Then came Lord Guilford, who is the 
most ramshackle fellow you ever saw. He is a kind of 
non mi ricordo likewise.* He seems, however, to have 
been a pretty frequent guest at her Majesty's table 
. . . has dined more than once with Bergami at the 
Queen's table and that he never saw the slightest 
impropriety. . . . But the witness of all witnesses has 
just closed her examination in chief — Lady Charlotte 
Lindsay. In your life you never heard such testimony 
as hers in favour of the Queen — the talent, the per- 
spicuity, the honesty of it. . , ." 



" House of Lords, Oct. 6th. 

" Wonders will never cease. Upon my soul ! this 
Queen must be innocent after all. Lady Charlotte 
went on in her cross-examination, and could never be 
touched ; tho' she was treated most infamously — so 
much so as to make her burst out a crying. There 
was a ticklish point about a letter from her brother, 
advising her to give up her place under the Queen, 
which [letter] she said she could not find. The fact 

* Referring to the evidence of some of the Italian witnesses for the 
prosecution, who in cross-examination so often answered, Non mi 
ricordo—^'' I don't remember " — that it passed into a saying. 



iSi9-20.] MINISTERS LOSE GROUND. 323 

is, her husband, Lindsay, who is in the greatest 
distress, has absolutely sold her correspondence on 
this subject to the Treasury.* She told this to 
Brougham himself under the most solemn injunction 
of secrecy, and he has this instant told it to me. 
When, therefore, Brougham mentioned loudly the 
name of Maule as a person to be called as a witness, 
the Chancellor decided the letter should not be pro- 
duced — this Maule being the Solicitor to the Treasury, 
who bought the correspondence of Lindsay. Was 
there ever villainy equal to this ? Eldon and Liver- 
pool had some sharp words on this occasion in the 
House. Thank God, the villains get out of temper 
V\^ith each other ! . . . Gell, cross-examined and ex- 
amined by the Lords, left everything still more 
triumphant for the Queen ; so much so that Pelham 
and a few other bishops are gone home to cut their 
throats. Lord Enniskillen has just said in my hear- 
ing that the Ministers ought to be damned for coming 
out with such a case. . . ." 

" House of Lords, gtli Oct., 10 o'clock. 

". . . The town is literally drunk with joy at this, 
unparalleled triumph of the Queen. There is no 
doubt now in any man's mind, except Lauderdale's, 
that the whole thing has been a conspiracy for money. 
The Ministers were down at Windsor yesterday, 
taking with them the ould customer Lonsdale, and a 
new one in the Duke of Rutland, . , ." 

"4 o'clock. 
" Captn. Flynn of the polacre is just call'd. He is 
mad, and in trying to do too much has, for the 
present, done harm; but it will be all set right 
to-morrow." 

" House of Lords, 2 o'clock, October loth. 

"This cursed Flynn is still going on. He has 
perjured himself three or four times over, and his 
evidence and himself are both gone to the devil. He 
is evidently a crack-brained sailor. ... he has fainted 
away once, and been obliged to be carried out." 

* There is no authority but Brougham's for this statement. 



324 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

*' Brooks's, 5 o'clock. 

". . . Lady Jersey stopt me in the street to 
reproach me for never coming to her, so I went last 
night and found all the political grandees there. 
Brougham, of course, was one, and he and I came 
away together. . . ." 

"Oct. I2th, one o'clock. 

" By Jove, my dear, we are coming to critical 
times, such as no man can tell the consequences of. 
It is quite understood that the Lords — at the suit of 
the Ministers — are resolved to pass this Bill, upon 
the sole point of the Queen being admitted to have 
slept under the tent on board the polacre, while 
Bergami slept there likewise. ... I predict, with the 
most perfect confidence, that commotion and blood- 
shed must follow this enormous act of injustice, 
should it finally be committed ; but (tho' I stand alone 
in this opinion) I will not and do not believe the 
Bill will pass the Lords. I have this instant seen 
Brougham ; ... he says he means to call the Duchess 
of Beaufort, Ladies Harrowby, Bathurst, their hus- 
bands, &c., to prove their intimacy with the Queen 
till the Regency. He means, too, that the Queen shall 
bring down a statement of all her sufferings, and of 
everything relating to the Royal family, from her 
arrival in England. It is now copying, and she is to 
come down and deliver it to the Chancellor to be read 
before the Bill pa°sSes. Brougham says everything 
that has happened yet is absolutely nothing in effect 
compared with what this statement will do." * 

"House of Lords, one o'clock, 13th October. 
"... A question arose as to a point of evidence, 
and whether a particular question might be put ; upon 
which Carnarvon fired such a shot into the whole 
concern, and called the bill such names as you never 
heard before. He made, in short, a most capital 
speech, and the thing exactly wanted at this period 

* Subsegtient note by Mr. Creevey. — "Why all or any of these 
threats were never put into execution remains for IMr. Brougham to 
explain." 



i8i9-20.] THE DUKE OP' NORFOLK'S OPINION. 3^5 

of the case ; but alas ! my lords Grey and Lansdowne 
and Holland were perfectly mute : they dared not 
criticise so roughly the measures of a man whom they 
hope so soon to call their Master. . . ." 

" 3 o'clock. 

"Here's a breeze of the first order! The last 
witness having ended, Rastelli was called back ; when 
behold! it turned out he had been sent out of the 
country, instead of staying to be indicted for perjury. 
. . . Liverpool admits it was scandalous to send him 
away, but that it was unknown to the Government. 
Holland and Lansdowne have made furious speeches 
upon the occasion, and Eldon is now speaking. . . . 
I dine at Holland House to-day. . . . We shall have a 
breeze on Tuesday in the Commons. The base devils 
who voted against me the last time are wanting me 
to make the same motion on Tuesday, and they will 
support me. . . ." 



Duke of Norfolk to Mr. Creevey, 

" Fornham, 13 Octr., 1820, 

"Dear Creevey, 

"Are you really become the champion of the 
H. of Lds., and suppose there is any atrocity they are 
not ready to vote for? For my own part, if they do 
pass this horrible Bill, I shall no longer consider it a 
disgrace or a hardship to be excluded * from a seat in 
their House ; but, on the contrary, rejoice that I have 
not been implicated in so foul a crime. Is it possible 
that the slight evidence they have for the tent scene 
alone can establish their whole case? I am anxious 
beyond measure to hear the result. Ly. Petre desires 
to be kindly remembered, and we hope you will come 
down. If by any miracle the Bill should not pass, 
what a jolification we will have ! 

" Yours sincerely, 

"Norfolk." 

* As a Roman Catholic. 



326 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cli. XIII. 

Mr. Crecvey to Miss Ord. 

"York St., i6tli Oct. 

"... I dined yesterday at Ridley's with Grey, 
Lansdowne, Rosslyn, Sefton, Brougham and various 
others. Grey is looking horribly ill. I dine at Lord 
Derby's to-day." 

" House of Lords, 2 o'clock. 

" We are now evidently going to have a splashing 
debate. The same witness that we had on Saturday 
has deposed to another person besides Rastelli, of the 
name of Raganti, having attempted to bribe him to 
come and give evidence against the Queen. He not 
only offered him money to come, but told him the 
particular thing to swear to. Mr. Attorney and Solicitor 
have objected to this as evidence. Brougham has 
taken the opportunity of firing the most capital broad- 
side into the whole concern as a conspiracy. ... A 
damned flat debate going forward instead of a splash- 
ing one. Grey has moved that the examination shall 
proceed, and Liverpool opposed it, but has let out 
most clearly to my mind that all the Italian evidence is 
to be flung overboard. So much for the Milan com- 
mission ! . . . I find that Hutchinson and Donough- 
more were with the King at Windsor to-day, so 
Liverpool's speech is accounted for. It is the first 
breakdown." 



*' House of Lords, lytli Oct., i o'clock. 

"... I went in from the Derbys last night to 
'Sally' Jersey's, and it was really very agreeable — 
only 'Sally,' Madame Lieven, Lady Eliz. Stuart and 
Madame Flahault, with four or five men besides 
myself. 

"The House of Commons meets at \ past three 
to-day, and I must contrive somehow or other to have 
a brush there. . . ." 



I8I9-20.] ADJOURNMENT OF THE COMMONS. 327 



"House of Lords, i8th Oct., i o'clock. 

"Alas poor Cole ! * 1 had always a misgiving she 
would get her death from me, and last night I fear the 
presentiment was nearly verified. It was a great deal 
too contemptible to hear the leader of the Whigs, with 
this damnable Bill of Pains and Penalties before his 
eyes, meet a question of adjournment with the ridicu- 
lous amendment of a shorter adjournment, and without 
uttering a syllable upon the Bill itself or the circum- 
stances of the time. I was compelled, therefore, to 
take the field, as no one else seemed inclined to shew. 
I had not pronounced two sentences before one and 
all of his troops deserted him. The roar that resounded 
from every part of the benches behind him (which were 
very full) was as extraordinary to me as it must have 
been agreeable to him. . . . As to the speech itself, 
being right and absolutely necessary to be spoken 
were its principal merits. I lost my head in the middle 
of it, and thought I should have been obliged to sit 
down, tho' I never was so cheered during any speech 
I have made in Parliament. Sefton overheard a con- 
versation between Cole and Duncannon at night, in 
which the latter said — ' Had you come to town a da}^ 
earlier, an arrangement might have been made, and all 

* Note by Mr. Creevey. — " The reason I call Tierney by the name 
of ' Cole ' is this. It used to be his constant practice in making his 
speeches in Parliament to bear particular testimony to his own cha- 
racter — to his being a 'plain man,' 'an honest man,' or something of 
that kind. Having heard him at this work several times, it occurred 
to me that he had formed himself upon that distinguished model Mrs. 
Cole, an old lady in one of Foote's farces, who presided over a female 
establishment in Covent Garden. Mrs. Cole was always indulging 
herself with flattering references to her own character. — ' For fourteen 
years,' said she, ' have I lived in the Garden, and no one has said black 
was the white of my eye. For fourteen years, did I say ? Aye, for 
sixteen years come Lammas Day have I paid scot and lot in the parish 
of St. Bride's, and no one has said, " Mrs. Cole, why did you so ? " 
excepting twice I was taken before Mr. Justice Duval, and three times 
to the Round House.' Brougham was for many years quite enamoured 
of the resemblance of the portrait. He christened Abercromby Young 
Cole, and the whole shabby party ' the Coles ; ' but he has become 
much more prudent and respectful of late." 



323 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIIL 

this scene avoided.' — 'No,' said Cole, 'I am confident 
nothing would have stopt Creevey's mouth.' Poor 
thing ! she has not been here to-day, so I suppose she 
has returned to the sea. . . . Lord Donoughmore had a 
curious conversation with Sefton yesterday, in which 
the former said the Ministers ought to be impeached 
for having brought the Bill forward — so compleatly 
had they deceived him as to their case. He mentioned 
his visit to Windsor last Sunday, and the difficulty he 
and his brother had in making the King see that the 
Bill would never go down. One of the royal argu- 
ments was : — ' Why, Lord Sefton has betted Lord 
Thanet lo to i that the Bill will pass the Lords, and 
as Lord Sefton is known to be so strongly against 
the Bill, surely this is quite convincing.' ... It was 
perfectly true that this bet had been made by Sefton 
with Thanet, which of course greatly enhances the 
merit of the royal argument. . . ." 

" House of Lords, Oct. 19, 
". . . Most important! McDonald has just returned 
to me. He has seen and talked with the Archbishop 
of York, and it is not only true that Lord Stafford 
has become the strenuous opposer of the Bill, but he 
has waited upon Lord Harrowby to state his con- 
viction that the Bill must be given up. You know 
McDonald is nephew both to the Archbishop and 
Lord Stafford. ..." 

" House of Lords, Oct. 20, i o'clock. 
". . . Having said that Brougham had made up his 
mind not to examine Oldi and Mariette, let me say 
why ; so that, if you keep my account of this trials 
posterity may know what the Queen's counsel really 
thought of his client — a very rare thing to know and 
in this case, quite authentic. Denman, Lushington, 
Tindal and Wilde are all decidedly for calling both 
Oldi and Mariette; Brougham has no doubt of the 
fidelity of these witnesses, and of their perfect belief 
in the Queen's innocence; but he is equally sure that 
the villainy of these judges — the Lords — would inflict 
a persecution of two days' examination upon each of 
these witnesses, and, from the experience of their 



I8I9-20.] BROUGHAM'S TACTICS. 329 

monstrous injustice in raising such diabolical infer- 
ences from admissions so natural and innocent as 
those of so capital a witness as Howman was, or 
from the rambling imbecility of Flynn, he dare not 
trust these foreign women to the same ordeal. All 
this I had from Brougham last night. He told me, 
too, as he has done before, that, altho' he was in 
possession of many circumstances unfavorable in 
appearance to the Queen, which were not known to 
me, he did nevertheless believe her to be compleatly 
innocent — in direct opposition to his former sentiments ; 
and that, furthermore, should this Bill ever come to 
the House of Commons, he will then, being no longer 
in the character of her counsel, take an opportunity of 
declaring, upon his honor as a gentleman, his sincere 
belief in her innocence.* 

" I had a very agreeable day at the Derbys yester- 
day, as indeed it always is there — the Fortescues, 
Darnleys, Kings and Bennet. To-day I dine at 
Sefton's with Brougham. . . . Holland House is the 
only place I have heard of as being in a state of rage 
at my attack on Cole.f ... A division has just taken 
place, when Liverpool and our people beat the Chan- 
cellor | and his by 122 to 79; but Grey, with his usual 
candour, has carried an amendment to Petty's § motion, 
that in my belief, and with such a villain as Powell to 
deal with, will make the motion perfectly nugatory. 
Grey's conduct throughout this business has been 
most injurious to the Queen, her counsel and her 
cause." 

"House of Lords, Oct. 21st, i o'clock. 

" Before I begin with the trial, let me tell you a 
story. On my arrival here at 10 this morning, I per- 
ceived a black man of an extraordinary appearance in 
Tom Tyrwhitt's || box at the other end of the House, 
and another black by his side, both in bushy black 
wigs. Upon enquiry, I found it was no less a person 

* He did so on February 5, 1821. 

t Mr. Tierney. 

% Lord Eldon. 

§ Lord Lansdowne. 

D Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, Black Rod. 



33P THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIIT. 

than the King of New Zealand and his Grand Cham- 
berlain ; and it was presently reported that they were 
white, and not black men, and that the black shade 
was merely the effect and impression of tattooing. 
Western and I went round, and got near enough to 
touch his Majestj^ ; when I found his royal face to be 
one of the very finest specimens of carving I have 
ever beheld. 1 he Chamberlain's face was fair : the 
sunflowers on it were highly respectable ; but the 
King's nose, which surpassed the average size, was 
one blaze of stars and planets. The groundwork of 
their faces, of which a mighty small portion remained 
without ornament, was evidently fair, but had been 
painted a deep orange colour. ... I just learn it was 
the Minister of the King, and not his Chamberlain ; 
and also that they are both just entered at some 
college in Cambridge, where 1 flatter myself these 
dingy academicians will do honor both to themselves 
and my favorite University. . . . 

" Sefton called yesterday on his uncle Lord Har- 
rington, who is confined with the gout. In the course 
of the visit, to Sefton's surprise and, as you may 
suppose, delight, Lord Harrington said — '1 shall be 
well enough to go and give my vote against this 
infamous Bill.' Upon Sefton leading him on, the 
other said — 'After the evidence of Lady Charlotte 
Lindsay, Mr. Craven and Sir Wm. Gell, no man with 
the pretensions to being a gentleman ought to have 
gone a step further with the Bill.' — Well done, old 
Gold Stick!" 

" House of Lords, Oct. 23rd, 2 o'clock. 

" Premierement, let me bring up the 7'ear of m}^ 
narrative respecting the King of New Zealand. It is 
confidently reported that en derriere both his Majesty 
and his Minister are much more profusely decorated 
with ornamental carving than on their faces — but 
you'll not quote me ! 

"Sefton told me last night of a conversation he 
had had with Thanet. It seems Lady Holland had 
complained to the latter in the strongest terms of my 
conduct to Tierney on Tuesday, and had stated that 
Cole was hurt by it to the last degree. — ' What did 
Thanet do or say?' says I. — 'Why,' says Sefton, 'he 



i8i9-20.] MR. DENMAN SUMS UP. 331 

snorted out into a loud laugh — said you was quite 
right, and that the Whigs were little better than old 
apple-women.' — This was a great relief to me ; tho' I 
was quite sure from Thanet's manner all was right ; 
but I shd. certainly have felt myself bound to surrender 
my seat had we differed about it. . . . Yesterday I 
dined at Brooks's with Ossulston : to-day I dine at 
the Derbys, with Brougham, Denman, the Seftons, 
and a huge party, I believe. . . . Grey, according to 
custom, has done all the harm he could. He is more 
provoking in all he does than these villains of Ministers 
themselves. However, thank God the case for the 
Queen is closed, and all looks well." 

" House of Lords, Oct. 24th, 2 o'clock. 

". . . Denman begun to sum up, and is now 
engaged in so doing. Their mighty case, you see 
therefore, is now finished, and a miracle no doubt it 
must appear to after times that all these charges of 
an adulterous intercourse which have been got up 
with so much secrecy — that begun six years ago and 
continued three years — that have had absolute power 
and money without end to support them, have been 
one by one demonstrably disproved by witnesses un- 
impeachable. . . . This admitted fact of the Queen 
sleeping on deck under the awning, and Bergami doing 
so likewise, under all the explanatory circumstances 
of the case, is the sole foundation of the Bill. . . . And 
now then — will the Lords pass the Bill ? I say No — 1 
say it is impossible : and yet something the villains 
of Ministers must do to save their own credit. . . . 
The Duke of Portland told Lord Foley he was one of 
60 peers who usually supported the Government, and 
who would vote against the Bill. This Foley told 
me himself I fear this is too high an estimate, but 
the Duke of Portland himself is a most fair and honor- 
able person." 

"Brooks's, 5 o'clock. 

" Denman's last two hours have been brilliant. His 
parallel case of Nero and his wife Octavia was perfect 
in all its parts. ... I am just going to dinner at 
Sefton's, and then to go and see Cymbeline with him 
and Brougham." 



332 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

"Brooks's, Wednesday morning, i past 12. 

". . . Lady Fitzwilliam goes to pay her respects to 
the Queen to-morrow. Lord FitzwiUiam has been 
here to-night, quite pleased to tell of his wife's 
intention. . . . Lady Jersey goes likewise. . . . Sir 
Willoughby Gordon has just told me he was quite 
sure he saw 40,000 people, with banners, pass through 
Piccadilly to-day on their way to the Queen. A 
division from another body passed us by on the water 
to the same destination, and saluted us with cannon 
as they passed." 

"York St., 26th Oct. 
"... I dined at Lambton's yesterday en famille. 
Grey (who stays there) dined at Billy Gloucester's, 
and came in before dinner in his prettiest manner to 
say to me how sorry he was he dined out. ' Apropos 
to Grey, he has somewhat made up to me for his past 
conduct by a reply he made to Liverpool. The day 
before yesterday, at the rising of the House, the latter 
came across to Grey, and, with the usual muggery 
they are always applying to him, asked him what 
adjournment he thought would be long enough for 
the consideration of the evidence, between the finish- 
ing by the counsel and the 2nd reading ; upon which 
Grey, in his rudest manner, said he did not see the 
necessity for any adjournment at all, as there was not 
a tittle of evidence to support the Bill ! Our people, 
who all heard this, were delighted with it. . . . Grey 
expressed the same sentiment to myself yesterday in 
the strongest manner. . . . What must the private 
tutor, Lauderdale, say to this ? I wonder when 
Lauderdale and idiots like himself will begin to think 
of the situation into which this infamous Bill has 
thrown this town. Every Wednesday, the scene 
which caused such alarm at Manchester is repeated 
under the very nose of Parliament and all the con- 
stituted authorities, and in a tenfold degree more 
alarming. A certain number of regiments of the 
efficient population of the town march on each of 
these days in a regular lock step, four or five abreast 
— banners flying — music playing. ... I should like 
any one to tell me what is to come next if this organised 
army loses its temper. . . ." 



1819-20.] NEARING THE END. 333 

*' House of Lords, 28th Oct., 2 o'clock. 

". . . Gfey, Rosslyn, the Lansdownes, &c., dined at 
the Duke of Gloucester's on Wednesday, when the 
Duchess after dinner talked to Lady Lansdowne about 
this trial, and said : — ' It was a very foolish, and indeed 
a very wrong thing to have got into, but the King had 
been greatly deceived upon the subject.' My authority 
for this is Lord John Russell, who told me that Lady 
Lansdowne told him. This is just as it should be : 
the gay deceiver has a good prospect. I wonder who 
he is. Is it Leach or Eldon? 

" I'll now tell 3^ou another story, perhaps not un- 
connected with this. Yesterday and to-day I have 
walked to Kensington Gardens before I came here; 
and to-day I met Lady Conyngham and Lady Eliza- 
beth* walking with a footman behind them. You 
know the palpable, unqualified cut they have treated 
me with these last two years, but to-day it was quite 
another thing. No, no ! an old acquaintance was not 
to pass her in that way: had there been any bystanders, 
they might have thought she was asking alms of me. 
She was evidently dying for me to turn about with 
her to talk politicks, and I was an idiot not to do it. 
I might have learnt from her how the dear King had 
been deceived. . . . Mr. Attorney has just finished, 
and the Solicitor has taken the field. He has an- 
nounced that he shall finish to-day, and then the 
House will adjourn till Thursday. The object of this 
adjournment is a last effort to bring this noble jury to 
their collars; but it is too late — the charm for once 
is broken, . . ." 

« "3 o'clock. 

". . . Mr. Solicitor is to have two hours more on 
Monday morning. ..." 

" Brooks's, 5 o'clock, Monday, 30th October. 
". . . Thursday is the day fixed for battle. Calcraft 
is the greatest croaker ; his list has been a majority 
of 40 for the Bill. He has reduced it to 35, and with 

* Her daughter, \\\\o married the loth Earl of Huntly, and died 
without issue in J 839. 



334 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

this majority he thinks the Government will carry the 
Bill, and go with it to the Commons. . . . Holland 
has just come to me and had a long conversation with 
me. He has taken great pains with his list too. . . . 
He gives a majority of 30 for the Bill as the maximum, 
and 15 as the minimum; but he is quite certain of the 
Bill not passing the Lords. . . . Lord Hutchinson 
offers to bet that 200 Peers will not vote. I never 
saw such a beautiful sight in my life as the Brass 
Founders' procession to the Queen to-day. I had no 
notion there had been so many beautiful brass orna- 
ments in all the world. Their men in armour, both 
horse and foot, were capital; nor was their humour 
amiss. The procession closed with a very handsome 
crown borne in state as a present to the Queen, 
preceded by a flag with the words — 'The Queen's 
Guard are Men oi MetaV I am quite sure there must 
have been 100,000 people in Piccadilly, all in the most 
perfect order. I am very much pleased that Hutchin- 
son has taken to me again. It is quite his own doing, 
and I am to meet him at dinner at Rogers's* on 
Wednesday." 

Mr. Western^ M.P., to Mr. Creevcy, 

"Brighton, October 29th. 

". . , Pray read Gobbet's attack upon Denman's 
speech. He is a foul-mouthed, malignant dog; but 
there is so much point in his criticism, that one can- 
not help admitting there is generally some truth in his 
remarks, and I certainly agree in his remarks on the 
tact of this speech. There is a great deal of bombast 
nonsense of quotations from the devil knows where, 
finishing the whole — ' Go and sin no more.' And the 
Lords to say this ! . . ." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Brooks's, Nov. i. 

". . . Here is Holland, asking me in the most 
humble tone if I really think the Bill will pass the 
Lords. Grey, it seems, thinks so, and it is the fashion 
to say so to-day. My opinion is unshaken that it can't." 

* Samuel Rogers, the poet and banker. 



i8i9-20.] WHAT WILL BE THE MAJORITY? 335 

" House of Lords, 2 o'clock, 2nd November. 

" Eldon begun this morning, and it was expected 
he would have made a great masterly judicial summing 
up ; instead of which, he spoke for an hour and a 
quarter only, and a more feeble argument for his own 
vote I never heard in all my life. He begun by 
intimating very clearly that the preamble of the Bill 
was to be altered, and the divorce part given up : 
then, without reserve or shame, he abandoned Miocci 
and Demont, and, in truth, all the filth of his own 
green bag, and all the labours of the Milan commission. 
Howman's evidence and the admitted fact of Bergami's 
sleeping on the deck under the same awning as the 
Queen, was his sheet anchor. . . . He said he was 
perfectly convinced of her guilt, and he further said 
that no one who had not the same opinion ought to 
vote for the second reading. Erskine followed, and 
had spoken for about three quarters of an hour, when 
he fainted away, and was carried out of the House ; 
since when, that villain Lauderdale has been speaking. 

"Yesterday and today have altered most materi- 
ally the state of public opinion as to the fate of this 
diabolical Bill. The cursed rats are said to have 
returned most rapidly to their old quarters, and the 
ministerial majority is rising in the market to 40, 45 
and 50. It is added, too, that the Bill is certainly to 
pass, and to be with us on the 23rd. I will not give 
my assent to any one of these reports till I have 
ocular proof of their being true; at the same time, 
with such rogues and madmen as one has to speculate 
upon, it is being almost mad oneself to expect any- 
thing being done that is right. . , ." 

^ ~" . "Brooks's, evening. 

" Primrose,* who is a government man, and one of 
the 16 Scotch Peers, made a very good speech after 
Lauderdale — against the Bill. ... I have just been 
over Norfolk House with the duke, and a capital 
magnificent shop it is. I dined yesterday at Rogers's, 
with Hutchinson, Brougham, Denman, &c. : to-morrow 
with Foley. Seymour Bathurst has just told Lambton 

* The 4th Earl of Rosebery, grandfather of the present earl. 



336, . THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

that the Bill will not go beyond the ,2nd reading. God 
send this may be true ! 

" House of Lords, 3rd Nov., |- past 3. 
"I have not heard all Lord Grey's speech, being 
obliged to go into the City, which I am truly sorry 
for, as what I did hear was quite of the highest order 
— beautiful — magnificent — all honor and right feeling, 
with the most powerful argument into the bargain. 
There is nothing approaching this damned fellow in 
the kingdom, when he mounts his best horse. . . . 

^ Lord Liverpool is now answering Lord Grey, and is 

* as bad as one would wish him to be." 



" House of Lords, 4th November, 2 o'clock. 

"... I must say, since my affair with Tierney on 
Wednesday week his behaviour has been perfect : not 
so that of Young Cole,* who is now at the same table 
with me, and would not for the world turn his beautiful 
eyes towards me." 

" House of Lords, 6th Nov., 2 o'clock. 

". . . Lord Lansdowne finished his speech in the 
very first rate style . . . since then the speakers 
ngainst the Bill have been the Duke of Somerset, 
Lords Enniskillen, Howard of Effingham, de Clifford, 
Grantham, Stafford and Calthorpe. The speakers for 
the Bill have been the Dukes of Athol and Northum- 
berland, and Lord Grenville is now speaking on the 
same side ; but, thank God, he comes too late. . . . 
Old Stafford uttered an opinion that is worth ten 
votes at least in the H. of Commons. He made no 
doubt of the Bill being lost in the H. of Commons, 
and that then there was an end of the Constitution. 
It never can come to the H. of Commons, by God ! 
That little chap de Clifford is an agreeable surprise. 
He is such a cursed Queen-hater that we always 
•calculated upon his being for the Bill. We had a 
most agreeable dinner yesterday at Brooks's — Fitz- 
william, Grey, Cowper, Norfolk, Jersey, Thanet, 
Albemarle^ — and, in short, 17 of its. Grey was all 

* The Hon. James Abercromby, M.P. 



i8i9-2o.] THE DIVISION. 337 

good humour and gentleness, and I had great pleasure 
in petting him — abusing him at the same time for all 
his palaver with Liverpool and Eldon, particularly 
the latter. . . . If you could see little Barny* with me 
you would say it was almost too much. Every day at 
the rising of the House he comes regularly to ask me 
to let him walk up with me, and so we do. At other 
times he is equally in pursuit of me. He wants me 
very much to let him take me a little tour with him to 
shew me Arundel, &c., &c. He wants me, too, to dine 
with him at Dowr. 'July's' to-day, but I shall do no 
such thing. I dine at Ferguson's." 

" Brooks's, 5 o'clock. 

"All is over — that is with the 2nd reading — 123 
for the Bill and 95 against it — leaving a majority for 
the Bill of 28 only. This is fatal. Eleven Bishops 
voted for it, and the Archbishop of Yorkf alone 
against it. 1 am delighted the young Duke of Rich- 
mond X voted against it. The other curious persons 
on the same side were Lords Bath, Mansfield, Bagot, 
Plymouth, Amherst, Delawar, Dartmouth, Enniskillen, 
Egremont, Audley, &c., &c. . . ." 



" House of Lords, Nov. 7, 2 o'clock. 

"Our first step this morning was Lord Dacre 
presenting a protest from the Queen against the 
proceedings of yesterday. . . . This occasioned a 
short discussion, upon form only ; excepting, indeed, 
another attempt from the Duke of Newcastle in favor 
of himself, in which, according to his practice, he 

distinguished himself as a d- d fool . . . and received 

his final castigation from Grey. ... It is supposed 
the Government have not made up their minds as to 
what course they are to take and that to-day has been 
used by them merely as a jaw for time. I had a very 
good-humoured nod from Wellington this morning, 
while the people in the Park were hooting him." 

* The Duke of Norfolk. 

t Right Rev. Edward Venables Vernon. 

X The 5th Duke, father of the present peer. 

Z 



338 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

" Brooks's, 4 o'clock, 8th Nov. 

"The House has been up these two hours, a 
division having taken place upon the question whether 
the divorce clause should be part of the Bill. In favor 
of this 129 voted, including all our people: against it 
there were 53, including every one of the Ministers, 
and all the Bishops but three. Was there ever such 
a spectacle! ... In ordinary times a Government 
would instantly abandon a measure over which they 
had no controul; there is an end, however, here to 
speculating upon men's conduct. . . . And now let 
me give you a little joke of mine which is very favor- 
ably received. Many of us are invited to dine at 
Guildhall to-morrow by very large cards of invitation 
from the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs; so, having procured 
a card of equal dimensions, I send it to Lord Kensing- 
ton with this alteration only in the style and contents 
— * Messrs. Gog and Magog present their compts., 
&c., &c., and request the pleasure of his lordship's 
company at Guildhall to partake with them of a Baron 
of Beef.' . . ." 

" Brooks's, Nov. 9. 

". . . Castlereagh got roughly handled at Covent 
Garden last night ; so much so, as to be obliged to 
decamp from the house. Erskine was greatly 
applauded. ..." 

" Brooks's, Nov. 10, 3 o'clock. 

" Three times three ! if you please, before you read 
a word further. The Bill is gone, thank God ! to the 
devil. Their majority was brought down to 9 — 108 
to 99 ; and then the dolorous Liverpool came forward 
and struck. He moved that his own Bill be read this 
day six months. You may well suppose the state we 
are all in. The Queen was in the House at the time, 
but Brougham sent her off instantly. . . . The state 
of the town is beyond everything. I wish to God 
you could see Western. He is close by my side, but 
has not uttered yet — such is his surprise." 

"York Street, nth Nov. 
" I was a bad boy for the first time last night, and 
drank an extra bottle of claret with Foley, Dundas, 



i8i9-2o.] THE BILL ABANDONED. 339 

Western, &c., &c., in the midst of our brilliant illumi- 
nations at Brooks's : not that I was the least screivy, 
but it has made me somewhat nervous. . . . We could 
distinctly see there were high words between Liver- 
pool and Eldon before the former struck his colours, 
and when he moved the further consideration that 
day six months, Eldon answered with a very distinct 
and audible ' Not content' It is quite impossible any 
human being could have disgraced himself more than 
the Duke of Clarence. When his name was called in 
the division on the 3rd reading, he leaned over the 
rail of the gallery as far into the House as he could, 
and then halloed — ' Content,' with a yell that would 
quite have become a savage. The Duke of York 
followed with his 'Content' delivered with singular 
propriety. ... It must always be remembered to the 
credit of our hereditary aristocracy that a decided 
majority voted against this wicked Bill. It was the 
two sets of Union Peers * and these villains of the 
Church t that nearly destroyed for ever the character 
of the House of Lords. However, thank God it is no 
worse. 

" I have said nothing to you of my City feast. . . . 
My attention was directed to a much more splendid 
object t — the Princess Olivia of Cumberland.§ No 
one can have any doubts of the royalty of ker birth. 
She is the very image of our Royal family. Her 
person is upon the model of the Princess Elizabeth,|| 

* The Representative Peers of Scotland and Ireland. 

t The Bishops. 

X Than Madame Oldi, whom he has described. 

§ This remarkable woman, Olive Wilmot Serres, presented a 
petition to the House of Commons, 14th July, 1820, setting forth that 
she was the legitimate daughter of William, Duke of Cumberland, 
second son of George II., and claiming recognition as such. She was 
the daughter of a house painter in Warwick named Wilmot, and 
married a foreigner named Serres, by profession a painter. Her 
striking resemblance to the royal family seems to have convinced 
many persons of the truth of her story, which was totally unsupported 
by any valid evidence. [See Ammal Register, vol. Ixii. p. 331 ; and 
vol. xliii. p. 150.] 

II Third daughter of George III., married in 1818 to Frederick, 
Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg. 

2 A 



340 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

only at least three times her size. She wore the most 
brilliant rose-coloured satin gown you ever saw, with 
fancy shawls (more than one) flung in different forms 
over her shoulders, after the manner of the late Lady 
Hamilton. Then she had diamonds in profusion hung 
from every part of her head but her nose, and the 
whole was covered with feathers that would have 
done credit to any hearse. Well ! after another 
quarter of an hour we all took the field again — the 
Lord Mayor at our head, and the gentle Lansdowne 
following with dear Miss Thorpe * under his arm. As 
we approached the great splendid hall, the procession 
halted for nearly ten minutes, which we in the rear 
could not comprehend. It turned out that Princess 
Olivia of Cumberland had made her claim as Princess 
of the Blood to sit at the right hand of my Lord 
Ma3^or. The worthy magistrate, however, with great 
spirit resisted these pretensions, and, after much 
altercation . . . she was compelled to retreat to 
another table, leaving the three Miss Thorpes the 
only ladies who had the honor to be surrounded by 
our English nobility. . . . The company assembled 
in the hall were nine hundred in number, ladies and 
gentlemen, at five tables. . . . We were marched 
entirely round the hall, till we arrived at the top, 
where a table on a slight elevation went across the 
hall for us guests. Western's great delight was three 
men in complete armour from top to toe, with 
immense plumes of feathers upon their helmets. 
They were seated in three niches in the wall over our 
table. ... It was their duty to rise and wave their 
truncheons when the Lord Mayor rose and gave his 
toasts ; which they did with great effect, till one of 
them fainted away with heat and fell out of his hole 
upon the heads of the people below. . . . 

" It is an abominable outrage to leave the Queen 
till February or the end of January without addresses 
from the two Houses upon her coming to the Throne, 
and without making any pecuniary provision for her ; 
but so it will be, for of course the Black Rod will tap 
at our door on the 23rd the moment the Speaker is in 
the chair, and thus Parliament will be prorogued 

* The Lord Mayor's daughter. 



i8i9-20.] THE PROROGATION. 341 

before a word of complaint can be uttered on this 
shameful conduct. Thank God, however, whoever is 
Minister has a pleasant time before him. The people 
have learnt a great lesson from this wicked proceed- 
ing: they have learnt how to marshal and organise 
themselves, and they have learnt at the same time the 
success of their strength. Waithman, who has just 
called upon me, tells me that the arrangements made 
in every parish in and about London on this occasion 
are perfectly miraculous — quite new in their nature — 
and that they will be of eternal application in all our 
public affairs, . . . They say the river below bridge 
to-day is the most beautiful sight in the world ; every 
vessel is covered with colors, and at the head of the 
tallest mast in the river is the effigy of a Bishop, 20 
or 30 feet in length, with his heels uppermost, hang- 
ing from the masthead. 

" I enclose a little love-letter I got from Lady 
Holland some days since. It was preceded by a 
message to the same effect a day or two before ; but, 
as you may suppose, I have taken no notice of either." * 

" Brooks's, Nov. 23, 4 o'clock. 

"No! I have seen many things in my life, but, in 
point of atrocity, nothing equal to our proceedings of 
to-day in the H. of Commons. Brougham wrote a 
note last night both to the Speaker and Lord Castle- 
reagh, telling them he should have a communication 
to make to the H. of Commons from the Queen. 
Castlereagh did not answer the note ; but the Speaker 
wrote him an answer that he would take the chair 
at i past 2, provided there were members enough 
present to make a house. We were there, of course, 
in great force, and he took the chair at the time 
appointed ; but, after swearing in two new members, 
and when Denman was upon his legs, just opening 
the Queen's communication, the Usher of the Black 
Rod knocked at the door. . . . You may suppose 
we all made a lusty holloa of ' Mr. Denman ! Mr. 

* Holland House disapproved of the activity of "the Mountain" 
in the Queen's defence ; while Creevey and the rest of the Mountain 
resented bitterly the deference shown by Holland House to the King's 
party. 



342 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIII. 

Denman ! ' The Speaker, however, left the chair, 
upon which Bennet called out with a loud voice — 
' This is scandalous ! ' As the Speaker walked down 
the house, followed by Castlereagh, Vansittart and a 
few others, we holloaed out — ' Shame ! shame ! ' that 
might have been heard in any part of Westminster 
Hall. Certainly such a scene has never occurred 
in the H. of Commons since Charles the ist's time. 
There were 150 members present. The villains dared 
not shew this specimen of their low and pitiful spite 
in public : the galleries were closed ; but Lambton has 
just given the editor of the Traveller an account of 
what passed. Canning was not in the House. . . . 
After all, there was no Speech from the Throne, quite 
contrary to all practices. If there had been one, the 
Speaker must have come back to report it to us ; but 
this was the thing meant to be avoided ; so, after 
being literally hooted out of our House, after going 
from the Lords he found his way the nearest road 
home, leaving us to find out as we could that we 
were actually prorogued." 




MRS. CREEVEY. 



[To face p. 342. 



( 343 ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 



I82I. 



The domestic annals of 1821 are scarcely less painful 
reading than those of 1820, so deeply smirched with 
the abortive proceedings against Queen Caroline. 
The domestic affairs of King George IV. continued 
to be of a nature to bring the monarchy into irrepar- 
able disrepute, the Marchioness Conyngham reigning 
as mmtresse-en-titre. Nevertheless, preparations went 
forward on a prodigious scale for celebrating his 
coronation. Parliament voted ;^243,ooo for the pur- 
pose, which, when it is considered in contrast with 
;^70,ooo expended on the coronation of Queen Vic- 
toria, may give rise to curious reflections upon the 
relative value returned to their subjects by the two 
sovereigns. The coronation of George IV. was 
saddened by the last scene in the squalid tragedy of 
Queen Caroline. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord, 

" London, January 15th, 182 1. 

*'. . . There is the most infamous newspaper just 
set up that was ever seen in the world — by name 

2 B 



344 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

John Bull. Its personal scurrility exceeds by miles 
anything ever written before. In accounting for the 
motives which have influenced the different ladies 
who have called upon the Queen, it states yesterday 
without equivocation, reserve, or by any inuendo, but 

plainly, that Lady T and Lady M B were 

induced to go by threats respecting the criminal inter- 
course that took place between Lady C W 

and a menial servant. You will not be surprised that 
O is furious.* . . ." 

" 17th Jan. 

"... I dined at Taylor's on Monday, and in the 
evening came Ferguson, Bennet, Mrs. G. Lambe, 
Lord Auckland and Brougham. The latter exceeds 
in oddity and queerness anything I ever beheld. 
What the devil he is at I cannot for the life of me 
make out. He is all for moderation, and his constant 
fellow-counsellors are Tierney, Scarlett t and Aber- 
cromby. I favored him with my fixed determination 
how I should act, and if you had heard him try to 
humbug me about the transitory nature of this 
popular ferment, comparing it to the Duke of York's 
case and Mrs. Clarke, you would have snorted out in 
his face. Yesterday, however, brought me a note 
from him, and to-day another to dine with him, and I 
am going accordingly. . . ." 

" 19th Jan. 

"... I dined with Brougham on Wednesday, but 
had not much good of him, as we were not alone. . . . 
I looked into Brooks's afterwards, and found Scarlett 
there. He was as pompous as be damned about 
publick affairs — change of Ministers — meeting of 
Parliament, &c., till I frightened him out of his wits 
by announcing to him the certainty of an opposition 
and division on Tuesday next. 

"Yesterday I met Brougham in the streets, and 
had a long walk with him, and found him much im- 
proved in temper — all sunshine, in fact. He says he 
never saw any one so improved as the Queen ; that 
she really is very entertaining, particularly upon the 

* The names indicated by initials, here and elsewhere, are given 
in full in the original. 

t Created Lord Abinger in 1835. 



1821.] THE QUEEN'S ESTABLISHMENT. 345 

subject of her travels. He is to manage a dinner for 
me there at an early date, and at her early hour, 
which is 3. . . . Meantime, her establishment is on 
the stocks and is getting on — the Duke of Roxburgh 
Grand Chamberlain, a young nobleman of 86, so that 
the breath of scandal can never touch this appoint- 
ment. He is, however, a very excellent old man, and 
a Whig, and is worth at least ;^5o,ooo per ann. Poor 
Romilly gained him his estate, and had the highest 
possible opinion of him. The poor old fellow declined 
at first, and indeed now has consented with reluctance. 
I saw his letter to Brougham yesterday upon this 
subject, which was quite as good as any play. It 
seems he married for the first time 5 or 6 years ago, 
and has children. He asks Brougham, therefore, if 
her Majesty is fond of children, and if he may bring 
his little ones from Scotland to present to her; and 
then he says he will only undertake the office of 
Chamberlain upon condition that he (Brougham) will 
be guardian to the Marquis of Beaumont, aged 4 
years and a half — the Duke's son. This condition, 
however, is a secret. Bruffam affected to be squeamish 
as to accepting this trust, but the job is done. Lord 
Hood is to be another of the Queen's household ; a 
Countess of Roscommon (Irish) is mentioned as one 
of the female staff; Lady Charlotte Lindsay, &c., &c. 
Pray read Lord Holland's letter to the Wiltshire 
meeting ; is not his anxiety for the Queen quite affect- 
ing, after all one knows of my lady's virtuous indigna- 
tion against her? ... I dined with Mrs. Taylor 
yesterday — Taylor and Miss Ferguson being engaged 
at Coutts's to celebrate his wedding day. They 
returned in the evening ; Miss Ferguson, from her 
appearance, might have been in a hot bath. They 
sat down to dinner 30 : old Coutts and his bride sitting 
side by side at the top of the table. The Dukes of 
York, Clarence and Sussex were there ; at side-tables 
were placed musicians and songsters ; one of the 
latter fraternity from Bath was paid ;^ioo for his trip." 

"21 Jan. 

". . . Sefton and I are going at 12 in his cabriolet 
towards Brandenburgh House, to see the addressers 
and processions to the Queen. Meantime the streets 



34^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

are chuck full of people, quite as much as four months 
ago. 

" Lord Holland came up to me at Brooks's yester- 
day, and reproached me for never coming near my 
lady ; and, after many civil things in his pretty manner, 
he said I should go and see her v^^ith him. So I did, 
and she was all civility and humility. At parting, she 
begg'd I would look in upon her in the evening, and 
I found afterwards she had written to Lord Sefton in 
the morning, begging he would accomplish this great 
point with me. . . . 

'^Apropos of Tierney, a funny thing happened 
about him some time ago at Cashiobury. Decaze 
and Tierney being both dining there, Decaze said — 
' If the Opposition came in, what would they do with 
Napoleon?' — Upon which says old Cole* in her way 
— ' Why, put him on the throne of France, to be sure ! ' 
Which sentiment was sent off by a special courier to 
old Louis le desire the instant Decaze returned from 
dinner. Old Louis forwarded the frightful intelligence 
to Troppau, where the Emperor Alexander has made 
the regular complaint and remonstrance to Gordon, 
our Minister there, who has returned it duly to the 
Foreign Office. The most comical thing is the 
different ways in which Castlereagh and Tierney take 
it. The former has sent the latter a funny message, 
saying he wishes he would have no more jokes with 
Decaze about Buonaparte, for that he has played the 
devil at Troppau. But old Cole is frightened out of 
her wits, and talks of nothing else — is apprehensive 
the country gentlemen will be out with it in the House 
of Commons, and that it may do the party a serious 
injury. She and Decaze had a meeting yesterday, and 
the latter has agreed if necessary to depose on oath 
that he believes Tierney's observation was only made 
in joke. 

" Holland set off at fotir this morning for Oxford, 
to help Lord Jersey at his county meeting.f It was 
with the greatest difficulty my lady let him go, and 
he begged me not to mention it before her, as it was 
a very sore subject." 

* Tierney. 

fin support of Queen Caroline, 



iS2i.] ! THE SUMMARY PROROGATION. 347 

" 23rd Jan. 

" Late as it is (being precisely one according to the 
watchman) I must have a word with you before I go 
to bed. 1 dined, as you know, at Sefton's with 
Brougham, and at ^ past nine they both pressed me 
to go to Burlington House, which (tho' I had been 
summoned by the circular note) I declined. Before 
they went, however, I pressed upon Brougham the 
absolute necessity of having a vigorous discussion, if 
not division, upon the outrage offered to the H. of 
Commons by the last prorogation without a speech 
from the throne under all the extraordinary circum- 
stances of the case. I pointed out to him how the 
thing ought to be done before the King's Speech was 
entered upon, and finally "told him, if the meeting at 
Burlington House did not take this line, Folkestone 
and Western most likely would. It is imjDossible to 
convey to you a notion of his artificial, disingenuous 
jaw upon this subject, evidently shewing that he was 
for nothing being done. And so off they went, and I 
to Brooks's, where I met Folkestone, who says he 
will take his line, and Western will support him. 

"About i past eleven the party came in, having 
done (as it appears to me) as much mischief as they 
could in so short a time. Nothing to be done to- 
morrow, and Tavistock to move on Friday a censure 
upon Ministers — in other words, a motion to turn 
them out, and to supply their places with our own 
people — the only motion to do the Ministers the least 
service, as / think, under all their great difficulties. 
This is the more provoking, because Tavistock, from 
the same motive with myself, did not attend this 
meeting, and yet had yielded to the views of some one 
in letting a notice of this motion be given for him. 
Was there ever anything like the inveterate folly of 
this Cole in pursuit of her maze? . . ." 

" 24th Jan. 

". . . As to Folkestone's intended proceedings 
yesterday, they were knocked on the head by the 
discovery of one precedent in the late King's time, 
in which a Parliament had been prorogued without 
a Speech, and by the thanks given in yesterday's 
Speech for the supplies of last year. ..." 



348 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

" 26th. 

"Nothing to-day, excepting Wellington's scrape 
last night in calling public meetings 'a farce.' * Was 
there ever such a goose to get into such a mess ? 
He was pummelled black and blue by Carnarvon, 
Lansdowne and Holland, and had not only to apolo- 
gise himself, but to get Liverpool to do the same for 
him. . . . You never saw a fellow so vicious as Grey, 
but all cordiality and good fellowship between him 
and me. 

" Pray tell me how I am to act upon a point of 
form. I am invited to dine on Sunday week both by 
the Duke of Sussex and the Speaker, and both are 
considered as commands. . . ." 

" 29th Jan. 

". . . Saturday I dined at the Fox Club — about 
100 of us. Grandees and Tiers-etat united. We are 
getting very much into the Reform line, I assure you. 
The Duke of Devonshire has declared for Reform : 
Slice t of Gloucester at Holkham ten days ago with 
royal solemnity declared himself a Radical. Yester- 
day I dined at the Duke of Sussex's, having contrived 
through Stephenson to change my day from next Sun- 
day. Lord Thanet took me, and our party were the 
Dukes of Gloucester and Leinster, Lord Fitzwilliam, 
Thanet, Grey, Erskine, Cowper, Albemarle, Bob 
Adair and myself. We had an agreeable day 
enough. Slice kept us waiting three-quarters of an 
hour, but this time was not thrown away. Sussex 
told us in confidence, that the obstacle to the Queen's 
name being restored to the Prayer Book did not 
come from the King, but that he could not tell us 

* The Duke, being taken to task in the House of Lords for 
having, as Lord-Lieutenantof Hampshire, refused to convene a county- 
meeting to protest against the proceedings in the matter of the royal 
divorce, replied with characteristic, but injudicious, bluntness that, 
having already presented a petition in favour of the Queen signed 
by 9000 persons in that county, he did not see what good purpose 
could be served by " going through the farce of a county meeting." 
It was an unlucky expression, and was brought up against him on 
numerous occasions for many years. 

t H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. 



l82i.] THE PRETENDER OLIVIA. 349 

more ; and even for this valuable communication he 
desired not to be quoted. I was surprised to hear 
Lord Grey say that he knew this to be true. 

" Then Sussex entertained us with stories of his 
cousin Olivia of Cumberland, with whom, for fun's 
sake, as he says, he has had various interviews, 
during which she has always pressed upon him, in 
support of her claims, her remarkable likeness to 
the Royal Family. Upon one occasion, being rather 
off her guard from temper or liquor, she smacked off 
her wig all at once, and said — * Why, did you ever in 
your life see such a likeness to yourself?' It seems 
that she lived in the capacity of Pop Lolly to Lord 
Warwick for many of the latter years of her life, and 
it is from some papers of his, and with the assistance 
of others, that she has at length started into the royal 
line.* 

" Grey and Lambton and Lady Louisa had been 
all at Brandenburg House yesterday morning ; and 
my lord's name was scarcely written by him, before 
the news flew like wildfire to the Queen, and he was 
told she begged to see him. So in he and Lambton 
went, and she seemed to be very much pleased, and 
so was he. So it's all very well — better late than 
never. . . . 

" I have two more Royalties to give you, and then 
I have done with the family. At the Levee on Friday, 
the King turned his back upon Prince Leopold in the 
most pointed manner ; upon which the said Leopold, 
without any alteration on a muscle of his face, walked 
up to the Duke of York, and in hearing of every one 
near him said — ' The King has thought proper at last 
to take his line, and I shall take mine ' — and so, with 
becoming German dignity, marched out of the house. 

"You will be affected to hear that the dear 
Duchess of Gloucester is not happy, and that, tho' 
Slice is in politicks a Radical, in domestic life he is 
a tyrant. Some lady called on the Duchess (indeed 
it has happened to two different ladies), and, being 
admitted, was marched up quite to the top of 
the house; where, being arrived out of breath, the 
Duchess apologised with great feeling for the trouble 

* See p. 339, note. 



350 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV- 

she caused her in bringing her up so far, but that in 
truth it was owing to the cruel manner in which she 
was treated by the Duke — that he had taken it into 
his head that the suite of rooms on the drawing-room 
floor were not kept in sufficiently nice order, and on 
that account he had them locked up, and kept the 
keys himself ... It is no wonder that the King 
treated Slice the last time he was at Court with the 
same sauce he did Leopold. The Radical has de- 
clared he will never go again. 

" Before dinner, we had some conversation upon 
the old story whether Francis was Junius, Grey and 
Erskine both expressing their most perfect con- 
viction that he was. Erskine mentioned a curious 
thing, which was confirmed by Lord Thanet. It 
seems they were both dining with Lady Francis, 
since Sir Philip's death, when Erskine asked her if 
Francis ever told her, or whether she ever collected 
from his conversation, that he was the author of 
Junius. To which she answered that he had never 
mentioned the subject, and that the only allusion to 
it was in a book. So she went out of the room, and 
brought back the little book 'Junius Identified,' and 
in the title page was written * Francis,' and, signed 
with his name — ' I leave this book as a legacy to my 
dear wife.' This I think, considering he never would 
touch the subject or the book of ' Junius Identified,' 
affords an additional strong presumption it was he. 

" Erskine was to the last degree ridiculous at 
dinner. Upon Warren's name being mentioned, he 
said he certainly could not be called a ' free Warren,' 
and then added — * indeed rabbits were hole-and-corner 
men, and who could say they were not ? ' 

" Upon some objections being taken to Erskine's 
wig at dinner, he said it had been made for Coutts, 
and that Mrs. Coutts had been kind enough to give it 
to him ; and then he pulled it off, when, to all our 
great surprise, tho' bald, he looked so beautiful and 
young he might have been 35 or 40 years of age at 
most.* He was so impressed with our compliments 
that he has promised to abandon wigs altogether 
when warm weather comes. 

* Erskine was then seventy-one. 



I83l.] LADY HOLLAND AT HOME. 351 

" Slice, who I had never met before, and who, you 
know, is a proverbial bore, behaved very well and 
modestly, which of course was owing to his being 
only second fiddle; but I assure you the two cousins 
made a very good exhibition of Royalty, both in 
propriety and agreeableness. 

" Thanet brought me back — first to Lady Jersey's, 
but she was not ready to receive her company, so 
we came to Brooks's. Then Cowper took me to 
Lady Holland's, where her ladyship looked as forlorn 
and discontented as ever she could look. She was in 
state, with Henry * at her feet — few men — no ladies, 
and the whole concern to the greatest degree sombre. 
Her great aversion at present is Lady Jersey, as 
taking her company from her, which I don't wonder 
at, as Cowper and I soon went there, and found a 
very merry party, cracking their jokes about a round 
table. Lady Jersey herself is a host, and then there 
were Brougham, Grey, Lambton, Lord Jersey, Dun- 
cannon, Lord and Lady Ossulston, Lady Sefton, Lord 
A. Hamilton, Cowper and myself: so it was all very 
well. My lady was all * mug ' to me about my farce 
on Friday,t and at parting desired me to lose no time 
in firing into them again. 

" It has given me great pleasure to see Sir Lowry 
Cole's name stand next to mine in the list of the 
division. To some one who talked to him whilst we 
were dividing, he said he never had but one opinion 
as to the impropriety of striking the Queen's name 
out of the Liturgy, and he was glad the time was 
come when he could express his opinion by his vote. 
Upon my word, the gentlemanly conduct of these 
soldiers — Lord Howard and Sir Lowry Cole — both 
dependent to a great degree upon the Crown, is quite 
touching. They leave your independent squires a 
hundred miles behind them. ... Of publick affairs 

* Lord Holland. 

t A speech on going into Committee of Supply, of which Creevey 
'says in another letter — " This little sortie was, I assure you, rather 
well done, and eminently useful in a very crowded House. ' Mouldy ' 
[Mr. Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Lord 
Bexley] made an attempt to punish me, but was instantly smothered 
in universal derision." 



352 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

there is nothing new. If the people keep up their 
feelings, and the expression of them as strongly as 
ever, on the subject of the Queen's exclusion from the 
Liturgy, the Government and their followers are no 
better off, and in truth much worse than before they 
waded so triumphantly thro' the dirt on Friday. I 
keep to my creed that this blackguard, foolish war 
with the Queen will eventually ruin the Ministers 
and produce some great change in the House of 
Commons." 

" Brooks's, 3otli Jan., 1821. 

"... I dined at Sefton's yesterday — Lord Grey, 
Lady Louisa and Lambton and Mr. and Mrs. Bruff- 
ham. . . . Grey is so keen with me about giving 
Brother Bragge * a dust about accepting his office and 
not vacating his seat, that I must, I believe, accom- 
modate him, . . . When, at dinner, I described old 
Cole's attempt at crimping me into the Doctor's 
campt in 1803, assisted by those distinguished states- 
men Porter and Brogden, he grinned most profusely, 
saying — ' God forgive me ! as Lord King says, but I 
can't help liking him.' " 

" Brooks's, 2nd. Feby. 

"... I have just discharged my duty to my native 
town [Liverpool] in seconding their petition. I rather 
think 1 never did anything so well. I spoke for about 
20 minutes ; the House was as mute as mice, and 
Castlereagh as grave as a judge at all I said. After 
dwelling upon the villainy of Castlereagh's new law 
of a 3rd reading of a Bill of Pains and Penalties in 
the Lords making a moral conviction of the defendant, 
coupled with all the enormous abuse that was nightly 
discharged upon her by his friends, I stated the utter 
impossibility of her taking the money from Castle- 
reagh and his House. . . ." 

* The Right Hon. Charles Bragge Bathurst, cousin of Lord 
Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Bragge 
Bathurst had been brought into the Cabinet as President of the Board 
of Control and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

t Tierney's attempt to enlist Creevey in support of Addington. 
[See p. 22,] 



l82i.] BROUGHAM FULFILS A PLEDGE. 353 

On 5th February Brougham redeemed his pledge 
to testify publicly on his honour to his belief in the 
innocence of Queen Caroline. He concluded as 
follows a speech on Lord Tavistock's motion of want 
of confidence in Ministers because of their conduct of 
the proceedings against the Queen : " It is necessary, 
Sir, for me, with the seriousness and sincerity which 
it may be permitted to a man upon the most solemn 
occasions to express, to assert what I now do assert 
in the face of this House, that if, instead of an 
advocate, I had been sitting as a judge at another 
tribunal, I should have been found among the number 
of those who, laying their hands upon their hearts, 
conscientiously pronounced her Majesty ' Not Guilty.' 
For the truth of this assertion I desire to tender 
every pledge that may be most valued and most 
sacred. I wish to make it in every form which may 
be deemed most solemn and most binding; and if I 
believe it not as I now advance it, I here imprecate on 
myself every curse which is most horrid and most 
penal." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Brooks's, 6th Feb. 

". . . On Sunday morning our grandees, or some 
of them, had a meeting upstairs here to consider the 
practicability of making a provision for the Queen by 
raising from ;,^200,ooo to ;^300,ooo by subscription. 
You will easily imagine I had no business there,* 
but Sefton and Lord Thanet sent Lambton to bring 
me there by force, so I heard what passed, and such 
a game chicken as Fitzwilliam I never beheld. Let 
me do justice, too, to Alec Baring, who smoothed 
away the least suggestion of any difficulty; and, in 
short, it was decided in two minutes to do the thing. 

* Seeing that he was such a poor man. 



354 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

Old Fitzwilliam went off directly to the Duke of 
Devonshire, who is quite as eager to start as the rest, 
provided it is not done till the H. of Commons shall 
have decided this day week, on Smith's motion, not 
to restore the Queen's name to the Liturgy. Then 
a kind of State paper is to come out from our people, 
shewing the absolute impossibility of the Queen, 
situated as she is, accepting the provision from the 
Crown and Parliament, and proposing their plan, with 
the names annexed to it, of making a voluntary pro- 
vision ; and no one seems to entertain a doubt of the 
success of the measure. . . . 

" Never was there such an exhibition as that of 

Sesterday by the defenders of the Ministers. Brother 
ragge could scarcely be heard, in which he was 
highly judicious ; Bankes might have been hired for 
Mackintosh to flog ; Peel was as feeble as be damned, 
and the daring, dramatic Horace Twiss made his 
first, and probably his last appearance on the stage.* 
On the other hand, I am sorry to say that Tavistock 
was infinitely below himself. . , . Lambton's was a 
very pretty, natural and ornamental speech, delivered 
with singular grace and discretion, and a beautiful 
voice withal. But old ' Praise God ' Milton in a short 
speech handled a couple of points in a much more 
powerful manner than anything Lambton did. . . . 
Nothing but the general and overpowering distress 
can keep the country steady to the Queen against the 
Court Ministers. ... It is said that the appointment 
of Sir Lowry Cole to be governor of Sheerness was 
made out, and immediately cancelled after his vote 
on Friday, and that it is now given to Lord Comber- 
mere.f . . ." 

* This was a singularly bad prophecy. Twiss, who entered Par- 
liament in 1820, made a fine appearance in the debate on Roman 
Catholic disabilities on 23rd March, 1821, and vigorously opposed the 
Reform Bill. Lord Campbell describes him as " the impersonation 
of a debating society rhetorician," and adds, " Though inexhaustibly 
fluent, his manner certainly was very flippant, factitious, and un- 
businesslike." Macaulay remarks that, when the Reform Bill passed 
a second reading, " the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned 
soul." 

t Cole was appointed Governor of Mauritius in 1823. 



1821.] DINNER WITH THE QUEEN. 35S 

" 7th Feb. 

"... I confess I had no notion such a majority 
could have been found to give a direct negative to 
the allegation that the late proceedings had been 
' derogatory from the dignity of the Crown and in- 
jurious to the best wishes of the People.' . . . The 
last half of Brougham's speech was quite inimitable. 
He made the declaration he formerly told me he 
would, as to his perfect conviction of the Queen's 
innocence, and he did it in a manner so solemn, and, if 
I may say so, so magnificent, that it was met with 
the loudest and almost universal cheers." 

"Feb. nth. 

"... I was at Brougham's by half-past two, and 
found Craven waiting. As soon as Brougham was 
ready, we set off to pick up Mrs. Damer, who was to 
dine also with the Queen. And here let me stop to 
express my admiration for this extraordinary person. 
You know she is Field Marshal Conway's daughter, 
cousin of Lord Hertford, Sec, &c. She is the person 
who paid all her husband's debts, without the least 
obligation upon her so to do, and she is the person 
who renounced all claim to half of Lord Clmton's 
estate when she was informed that by law she was 
entitled to it. She is 70 years of age, and as fresh as 
if she was 50. . . . Well — when we reached Branden- 
burg House, we were ushered up a very indifferent 
staircase and through an ante-room into a very hand- 
some, well-proportioned room from 40 to 50 feet 
long, very lofty, with a fine coved ceiling, painted 
with gods and goddesses in their very best clothes. 
The room looks upon the Thames, and is not a 
hundred yards from it. Upon our entrance, the Queen 
came directly to Mrs. Damer, then to Brougham, and 
then to me. I am not sure whether I did not commit 
the outrage of putting out my hand without her doing 
the same first ; be it as it may, however, we did shake 
hands. She then asked me if I had not forgotten her, 
and I can't help thinking she considered my visit as 
somewhat late, or otherwise she would have said 
something civil about my uniform support. She is 



3S6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

not much altered in face or figure, but very much in 
manner. She is much more stately and much more 
agreeable. She was occasionally very grave. . . . 
She took me aside twice after dinner, and talked to 
me of her situation. She is evidently uneasy about 
money. . . . She mentioned no women, but the Duke 
of Wellington did not escape an observation from 
her, as to the surprise it occasioned in her that he 
should be so violent against her. ... A curious thing 
happened at dinner. . . . Craven, who turns out to 
be a wag, with all his propriety, was alluding to that 
celebrated ball or fete where the Queen was the 
Genius of History. It seems the whole of this fete 
was got up by a Duke of Caparo ; every character 
was prescribed by him, and both the Queen and 
Craven laughed heartily at the recollection that, the 
Genius of History being to enter preceded by Fame, 
when the time for their appearance arrived. Fame's 
trumpet could not be found, and the performance was 
stopped for some time, till Fame was obliged to put 
up with a horn of one of the Duke of Caparo's 
keepers. . . . 

''Our company of ladies was Mme. Olde and 
Mme. Felice. , . . Mme. Felice is a very, very little 
woman, with one of the prettiest faces I ever saw. 1 
should think she was not much older than 20, though 
she has been married 5 years. As we went down to 
dinner, Craven handed the Queen, Brougham Mrs. 
Damer ; Mme. Felice, who was leaning on the arm of 
a foreigner, seeing me unprovided for came in the 
most natural, laughing manner, and put her arm 
thro' mine. ... Of men, the principal was the 
Marquis of Antalda, a great proprietor in Pessaro 
and Bologna ... a person of great consideration in 
his own country, a man of letters, and as agreeable a 
man as you will find anywhere. . . . There might be 
six or seven other men, and nothing could be more 
decorous or more courtlike than they all were in 
their manner to the Queen. . . . We came away 
before eight. . . . There is a capital picture by 
Hoppner of Berkeley and Keppel Craven. The only 
picture belonging to her Majesty is one of Alderman 
Wood without a frame." 



lS2i.] LORD HOLLAND'S ArOLOGY. 357 

"Brooks's, 14th Feb. 
". . . Our folks are to meet presently about the 
Queen's subscription. Unfortunately Fitzwilliam is 
out of town, but Milton is now by my side." 

" 4 o'clock. 

"The meeting is over: very thinly attended, and 
things looking damned ill and black." 

"Brooks's, 16 Feb. 

". . . You never saw such a change in any person 
as in Brougham. He is involved in the deepest 
thought, and apparently chagrin. He never comes 
near Sefton, as was his daily custom, nor can we con- 
jecture what he is about. I think his false step about 
the Queen in advising her to refuse the money must 
surely have something to do with it. He seems most 
wretched. Grey and Lambton and Lady Louisa, &c., 
&c., are to dine with the Queen to-morrow. . . ." 

" 24th Feb. 
". . . The Queen has bought Cambridge House 
in South Audley Street. . . . Thanet and Sefton 
advanced the deposit money, ;^30oo, this morning. I 
am afraid you don't see the Times, otherwise you 
would read in it Holland's apology for having said in 
his speech in the House of Lords that the Emperor of 
Russia was concern'd in his father's death. Lady 
Holland has never slept since ; Madame Lieven 
declines all further intercourse with the Hollands, 
and, in short, the contemptible statement in the 
Times, tho' anonymous, is from Holland himself, and 
made as his peace offering to the Emperor of all the 
Russias,* the Elevens and the Princess of Mada- 
gascar."! 

* The use of this clumsy paraphrase of the Czar's title is, of course, 
very common in British parlance, but is none the less a barbarism. 
The meaning of the term in Russian is " the all-Russian Emperor," 
in the same sense that one uses the terms " Pan-Germanic," " Pan- 
Anglican," &c. 

t In Lady Caroline Lamb's novel Glenarvon, Lady Holland was 
presented as the " Princess of Madagascar." 



358 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"London, 19 July, 1821. 

"Dear C, 

" This town is in a state of general lunacy 
beginning most certainly with the Illustrious Person 
on the throne. Geo. 3. was an ill used man to be shut 
up for 10 years. His son has slept none, I believe, 
since you left town ; nor will, till it is over. Yesterday 
he went for near 3 hours to Buckingham House, 
where Lawrence was painting Lady Conynghame. 
He then came back and had another row with his 
ministers, having been all Saturday and half of Sunday 
in a squabble with them ; and, soon after he was 
housed, there drove along the Mall furiously a carriage 
and four, which was followed by my informant and 
found to contain old Wellesley in person. He was 
actually traced into Carlton House by the back door. 
You may make what you please of this,* but the fact 
is undoubted, as Duncannon and Calcraft were the 
persons who saw him, 

"To-day the Q.'s being allowed to enter the Abbey 
is doubted . . . but I still think it possible the Big 
Man may have gout and not be up to it.f 

" Yours, 
"H. B." 

"20th July. 

". . . The paroxysm rather encreases than diminishes, 
and literally extends to all classes. There never was 
a more humbling sight in this world. The Ministers 
are still sitting and squabbling; nor have they to this 
hour (5) made up their minds whether to stop her or 
not. My belief is they will let her pass, and also 
admit her at the Abbey if she persists. She is quite 
resolved to do so, and comes to sleep at Cambridge 
House for the purpose. But she is sure to blunder 
about the hour, and to give them excuses for turning 

* The inference was that the Cabinet was jibbing about the 
Queen's exclusion, and that the King contemplated laying his 
commands on Wellesley to form an administration. 

t The Coronation. 



1821.] THE QUEEN EXCLUDED FROM THE ABBEY. 359 

her back by being late. . . . We [Brougham and Den- 
man] thought at one time she meant to command 
our attendance, which we had resolved, of course, to 
refuse, as no more in our department than going to 
Astley's ; but she did not venture. She has turned 
off the poor Chaplain Fellowes, who wrote all the 
balderdash answers, to make room for Wood's son ; 
but the Alderman has failed in an attempt to turn off 
Hieronymus, the Major-domo, in order to put some 
friend of his in the place. Dr. Parr has written a 
vehement letter to advise against her going, and 
certainly this is the prevailing opinion among her 
friends. I suppose I must be wrong, but I still can- 
not see it in the same light ; and of this I am quite 
sure, that she would have been quite as much blamed 
had she stayed away. It is also certain that nothing 
short of a quarrel and resigning would have stopped 
her : perhaps not even that ; . . . but to take such a 
step, one ought to have been much more positive 
against the measure than I have ever been from the 
first." 

" Thursday. 

"Dear C, 

"The Qn. (as I found on going to her house 
at 20 minutes before six this morning) started at a 
quarter past five, and drove down Constitution Hill 
in the mulberry — Lady A[nne] H[amilton] and Lady 
Hood sitting opposite. Hesse (in uniform) and Lord 
H[ood] in another carriage went before. I followed 
on foot and found she had swept the crowd after her : 
it was very great, even at that hour. She passed thro' 
Storey's Gate, and then round Dean's Yard, where she 
was separated from the crowd by the gates being 
closed. The refusal was peremptory at all the doors 
of the Abbey when she tried, and one was banged in 
her face. . . . She was saluted by all the soldiery, and 
even the people in the seats, who had paid lo and 5 
guineas down, and might be expected to hiss most 
at the untimely interruption, hissed very little and 
applauded loudly in most places. In some they were 
silent, but the applause and waving handkerchiefs 
prevailed. I speak from hearsay of various persons 
of different parties, having been obliged to leave 

2 c 



36o THE CREEVEY PAPERS, [Ch. XIV. 

it speedily, being recognised and threatened with 
honors. 

"About i past six [a.m.] she had finished her 
walks and calls at the doors, and got into the carriage 
to return. She came by Whitehall, Pall Mall and 
Piccadilly. The crowd in the Broad Street of White- 
hall was immense (the barriers being across Parlt. St. 
and King St.). All, or nearly all followed her and 
risked losing their places. They crammed Cockspur 
Street and Pall Mall, &c., hooting and cursing the 
King and his friends, and huzzaing her. A vast multi- 
tude followed her home, and then broke windows. 
But they soon (in two or three hours) dispersed or 
went back. 

" I had just got home and she sent for me, so I 
went and breakfasted with her, and am now going to 
dine, which makes me break off; but I must add that 
the King was not well received at all — silence in man}'^ 
places, and a mixture of hisses and groans in others. 
However, there were some bounds kept with him. 
Por Wood and Waithman — a 'division of hissing and 
shouting — for the Atty. and Solr. Gen. an unmixed 
hissing of the loudest kind. This verdict is really of 
some moment, when you consider that the jury was 
very much a special, if not a packed, one. The general 
feeling, even of her own partisans, was very much 
agt. her going; but far more agt. their behaviour to 
her. I still can't see it in that light ; and as she will 
go quietly back to B[randenburg] House,* avoiding 
all mob most carefully, she gains more than she loses, 
and I think her very lucky in being excluded. They 
put it on not being at liberty to recognise her or any 
one, except as ticket-bearers. Lord H[ood] shewed 
me one which they said of course would pass any one 
of the party, but she refused to go in except as Q. 
and without a ticket. The one Lord H. shewed me 
was the Beau's,t and I have it as a memorial of the 
business. . . ." 

Brougham now made plans to rouse the North 
in the Queen's favour, though he appears to have 

* She had come to Cambridge House for the Coronation, 
t The Duke of WeUington's. 



l82i.] THE NORTH TO BE ROUSED. 361 

opposed Her Majesty going there in person. His 
plans, here characteristically sketched in a letter to 
Creevey, were never carried into effect, death inter- 
vening mercifully to remove Queen Caroline from 
the troubled scene — the scene which her continued 
presence could only have rendered still more troubled. 
The appalling severity of the remedies administered 
can scarcely have failed to accelerate her release. ; 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey {at Cantley*). 

"26th July. 
"Dear C, 

" The Queen certainly goes to Scotland. . . . 
I should not wonder if she were to go thro' the 
manufacturing districts. Possibly Birmingham (where 
the K. refused to go) may be in her way. It is on 
the cards that she should be found in the W. Riding 
and in Lancashire. For aught I know H. M. may then 
pass across towards Durham and Newcastle. Indeed 
the great towns are peculiarly interesting to a person 
of her contemplative cast. One whose mind is im- 
proved by foreign travel naturally loves tracts of 
countr}?- where the population is much crowded, and 
it is worthy of H. M.'s enlightened mind to patronise 
the ingenuous artizan. The coal trade, too, is highly 
interesting. I only hope she may not call at Howick 
on her way. . . . The time of her setting out is not 
fixed, depending naturally upon her beloved husband's 
motions. . . . The Chamberlain's place is not yet given 
away. The Ministers are believed to have resolved 
to bear this no longer, and to have agreed on a remon- 
strance to the K. about the Green Ribbons.f He will, 
of course, say something civil that means little — make 
some promise that means less — let them name to one 
place, name to the other himself— and so settle matters 
as to enable him to go over to Ireland. . . . The Queen 

* Michael Angelo Taylor's place in Yorkshire, 
t The King had been creating Knights of the Thistle without 
taking the advice of his Ministers. 



362 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

has lost incalculably by getting out of her carriage 
and tramping about ; going and being refused, and 
damaging the Coronation, was all very well, but the 
way of doing it was very bad. . . ." 

" 28th July. 
" The Chamberlain not yet given away, and there 
seems an idea of Wellesley. I heartily wish the 
present state of squabble between the K. and his 
Ministers was over, and he and Ly. C[onyngham] no 
longer civil to the Whigs. There is no chance of its 
bringing about any change, but the risk is frightful — 
I mean of any change operated by such means. His 
dining with the Beau* to-morrow, and the whole 
Ministers dining with him [the King] to-day, looks 
like matters being settled between them. At the 
Levee yesterday he was particularly rude to Hesse ; 
so was he to the Lord Mayor at the Coronation. . . . 
I have not seen her [the Queen], but I shall to-night, 
and certainly shall throw cold water on the northern 
expedition. . . . 

"H. B." 



Viscount Hood (Lord Chamberlain to Queen 
Caroline) to Henry Brougham, M.P. 

"21 July, 1821, Brandenburgh House. 

" My dear Sir, 

". . . Her Majesty has commanded me to say 
she intends visiting Scotland, but I have not as yet 
heard the time fixed. . . ." 



Mi\ Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Cantley, Aug. 8. 
". . . Brougham was here for a very short time on 
Sunday night, having left London at six on Saturday 
evening, travelled all night, and being obliged to go 
to York that night (40 miles), so as to be ready for 
the assizes in the morning. . . . As to his Royal 

* The Duke of Wellington. 



iS2i.] THE QUEEN'S DEATH. ^6^ 

Mistress, his account was most curious. On Friday 
last she lost sixty-four ounces of blood ; took first of 
all 1 5 grains of calomel, which they think she threw 
up again in the whole or in part ; and then she took 
40 grains more of calomel which she kept entirely in 
her stomach ; add to this a quantity of castor oil that 
would have turned the stomach of a horse. Never- 
theless, on Friday night the inflammation had subsided, 
tho' not the obstruction on the liver, 

"Her will and certain deeds had been got all ready 
by Friday night according to her own instructions. 
Brougham asked her if it was her pleasure then to 
execute them ; to which she said — ' Yes, Mr. Brougham ; 
where is Mr. Denman ? ' in the tone of voice of a person 
in perfect health. Denman then opened the curtain of 
her bed, there being likewise Lushington, Wilde and 
two Proctors from the Commons. The will and papers 
being read to her, she put her hand out of bed, and 
signed her name four different times in the steadiest 
manner possible. In doing so she said with great 
firmness — ' I am going to die, Mr, Brougham ; but it 
does not signify.' — Brougham said — ' Your Majesty's 
physicians are quite of a different opinion.' — 'Ah,' she 
said, ' I know better than them. I tell you I shall die, 
but I don't mind it' . . ." 



Viscount Hood to Henry Brougham, M.P. 

" Brandenburgh House, 8th Aug., 1821. 

". . . The melancholy event took place at 25 
minutes past 10 o'clock last night, when our dear 
Queen breathed her last. Her Majesty has "quitted a 
scene of uninterrupted persecution, and for herself I 
think her death is not to be regretted. . . . She died 
in peace with all her enemies. Je ne nionrrai sans 
douleur, mats je mourrai sans regret — was frequently 
expressed by her Majesty, I never beheld a firmer 
mind, or any one with less feelings at the thought of 
dying, which she spoke of without the least agitation, 
and at different periods of her illness, even to very 
few hours of her dissolution, arranged her worldly 
concerns. . . ." 



364 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 



Mr. Wilde to Henry Brougham, M.P. 

" Guildford, 8th Aug., 1 82 1 . 

". . . Lushington and myself this morning saw 
Lord Liverpool and gave copies of the will and codicils. 
Government take charge of the funeral, which they 
intend shall be a private one. Lord Liverpool referred 
me to Lord Melville, who we saw, and he will im- 
mediately order a squadron, which will be ready in a 
week. The body is to be embarked at Harwich and 
landed at Cuxhaven. . . . Lushington is married this 
morning; and has left London, to return on Friday. . . ." 



Dr. Lushington to Henry Brovigham, M.P. 

" Carlton, near Newmarket, 9 Aug., 1821. 

"My dear B., 

"... I arrived just before 4 on Tuesday, and 
the Queen immediately desired to see me. . . . Baillie 
soon after assured me she was dying, but that the 
event would not take place for some hours. I went 
away for a short time, and then remained in the room 
till death closed the scene. . . . On her death happen- 
ing, Wilde and myself secured all the repositories as 
well as we could. This occupied us till between 2 and 
3 in the morning. . . . My situation was truly painful. 
You know I was to be married that very morning — 
Wednesday. I could not, for various reasons, post- 

Sone it ; so, having taken 2 hours rest, I went to 
[ampstead, was married, and immediately returned 
to town. I had, on the death taking place, sent an 
express to Lord Liverpool. He came to town. I saw 
him with Wilde. He behaved extremely well — said 
Government would defray the expense of the funeral, 
and that he issued orders from the Chamberlain's 
office. He readily assented that the body should not 
be opened, and that the funeral should take place at 
Brunswick. By his desire I went over to Lord 
Melville, and he arranged that two frigates should 
be sent to Harwich and convey it to Cuxhaven, , , ." 



iS2i.] SUSPICIONS ABOUT BROUGHAM. 3^5 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord, 

" Cantley, Aug. 1 1. 

". , . The death of this poor woman under all its 
circumstances is a most striking event and gave me an 
infernal lump in my throat most part of Thursday. . . . 
Nothing in my mind could be so calculated to injure 
this poor woman as the extraordinary overture made 
by Brougham to the Government in 1819. It seems 
that, at his request or by his direction, the Queen 
came from Italy to Lyons in the autumn of that 
year for the sole purpose of meeting Brougham there, 
to consult with him upon her situation ; but, forsooth, 
' he could not go — he was busy.' This is all the excuse 
he makes for himself, and then he seems to think it 
odd she was very angry at this disappointment. He 
admits, likewise, that on this occasion she became 
very ill. So he was to have gone to her at Milan in 
the Easter of 1820, as you know he told me, when 
he asked me to go with him. . . . But he never 
mentioned having so lately brought the poor woman 
to Lyons for nothing. When I recall to mind how 
often, during our journey to Middleton at that time,* 
he spoke of the Whig candidates for office with the 
most sovereign contempt — how he hinted at his own 
intercourse with the Crown and Ministers, and con- 
veyed to me the impression that he thought himself 
more likely to be sent for to make a Ministry than 
any one else — how clear it is that the accomplishment 
of this divorce was to be the ways and means by 
which his purposes were to be effected.f . . . There 

* See p. 295. • 

t Mr. Creevey was not singular in his suspicion of Brougham, 
Writing on 12th April, 1821, J. W. Croker observes : " Brougham, it is 
said, grossly has sold the Queen. There is no doubt that he has with- 
drawn himself a good deal from her, and I believe has been for some time 
in underground communication with Carlton House." Again on April 
22nd : " Brougham and Denman sworn in the day before yesterday 
as Attorney- and Solicitor-General to the Queen. Brougham, I hear, 
wished to secure the profits without the inconveniences of the appoint- 
ment, and offered not to assume it if Government would give him a 
patent of precedence, but the Chancellor refused " [ T/ie Croker Papers, 
i. 172-^]. 



366 > THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

is one subject which gives me some uneasiness — in 
the making of her will, the Queen wished to leave 
some diamonds to Victorine, the child of Bergami, of 
whom she was so fond. This was not liked by 
Brougham and her other lawyers, so the bequest 
does not appear in the will ; but the jewels are never- 
theless to be conveyed to Victorine. This, you know, 
is most delicate matter — to be employed on her death- 
bed in sending her jewels from Lady Anne Hamilton 
and Lady Hood to Bergami's child appears to me 
truly alarming. I mean, should it be known, and one 
is sure it will be so, for Taylor had a letter from 
Denison last night mentioning such a report, and 
being quite horrified at it. On the other hand, when 
I expressed the same sentiment to Brougham, he 
thought nothing of it. His creed is that she was a 
child-fancier : that Bergami's elevation was all owing 
to her attachment to Victorine, and he says his con- 
viction is strengthened every day of her entire inno- 
cence as to Bergami. This, from Brougham, is a 
great deal, because I think it is not going too far to 
say that he absolutely hated her ; nor do I think her 
love for her Attorney General was very great." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mj^. Creevey. 

"Aug. 14, 1821. 
''Dear C, 

" I have seen Lushington and Wilde re- 
peatedly. They are at this moment in negociation 
with the Govt. ; or rather throwing up all concern 
with the funeral on account of this indecent hurry. 
Their ground is a clear one : they won't take charge 
of it from Stade — the port in Hanover — to Brunswick 
without knowing that arrangements are ready to 
receive them. . . . The Govt, only wishing the speedy 
embarkation, as they avow, for the sake of not delaying 
the dinner at Dublin, insist on getting it on board as 
quick as possible, and don't mind what happens after- 
wards. ... I shall, I think, be satisfied with going to 
Harwich with it, and not go, as I had intended, to 
Brunswick." 



i82i.] AN HONOURABLE EXECUTOR. 367 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Cantley, Aug. i8th. 

". . . Here is Brougham again. He has been at 
Harwich, where he saw the body of the Queen 
embarked about 3 o'clock on Thursday; and then 
immediately came across the country, and, after 
travelling all night, got here to dinner yesterday, and 
proceeds to Durham to-night to join the circuit there, 
i wish very much I had been at Harwich : according 
to Brougham's account it must have been the most 
touching spectacle that can be imagined — the day 
magnificently beautiful — the sea as smooth as glass — 
our officers by land and sea all full dressed — soldiers 
and sailors all behaving themselves with the most 
touching solemnity — the yards of the four ships of 
war all manned — the Royal Standard drooping over 
the coffin and the Queen's attendants in the centre boat 
— every officer with his hat off the whole time — minute 
guns firing from the ships and shore, and thousands 
of people on the beach sobbing out aloud. ... It was 
as it should be — and the only thing that was so during 
the six and twenty years' connection of this unhappy 
woman with this country. . . . The Queen appointed 
as executors of her will Bagot,* the Minister of this 
country to America, and Lord Clarendon, and she left 
them all her papers sealed up. The other day Lord 
Jersey received a letter from Lord Clarendon begging 
him to come to him, which he did. He [Lord Claren- 
don] then told him that he was going as executor to 
open his [Lord Jersey's] mother's papers.t The seal 
was then taken off, and letters from the Monarch to 
his former sweetheart caught Jersey's eye in great 
abundance. Lord Clarendon then proceeded to put 
them all in the fire, saying he had merely wished Lord 
Jersey to be present at their destruction, and as a 
witness that they had never been seen by any one. 
Very genteel, this, on Lord Clarendon's part to the 

* Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Bagot. 

t Frances, wife of the 4th Earl of Jersey. Her relations with the 
Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) were notorious. She died 
25th July, 1 82 1. 



368 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

living Monarch and memory of his mistress, but 
damned provoking to think that such capital materials 
for the instruction and improvement of men and 
womankind should be eternally lost ! Let me add to 
the honor of Jersey, and indeed of his wife (for it was 
her money, not his), that he had raised his mother's 
jointure from ;^iioo per ann. to ^3500, and that he has 
paid at different times ;^6ooo and ;^2000 in discharge 
of her debts. . . . 

"And now what do you think Brougham said to 
me not an hour ago ? — that if he had gone with the 
Queen's body to Brunswick, it would have been going 
too far — it would have been over-acting his part ; ' it 
being very well known that through the whole of this 
business he had never been very much for the Queen ! ' 
Now upon my soul, this is quite true, and, being so, 
did you ever know anything at all to equal it ? 

"Brougham showed me a letter he has received 
from Pauline,* from Italy, requiring his influence with 
the Government to obtain permission for her to go 
out to St. Helena to her brother Bonaparte. It 
encloses a variety of medical and other reports, stating 
his rapidly declining health, and that she wishes to 
go out to him with all possible dispatch. Apropos 
to this subject, Brougham and Lord Roslyn called on 
Wilson t one day this week, and found Bertrand and 
Montholon with him. . . . There are two fellows in 
London from Talleyrand to negociate Bonaparte's 
Memoires from them. This is believed to be their 
object, and Lady Holland writes from Paris that 
Talleyrand is cursedly alarmed about these said 
memoiresP 

"Cantley, 27th August, 1821, 

", . . Lauderdale (who is here) tells me that when 
the Ministers have any papers for the King to sign, 
they write a letter to Bloomfield begging him to get 
the King's signature, and Bloomfield again has to 
solicit Du Paguier, the King's valet, to seize a favor- 
able opportunity . . . but that, after all, the operation 
is the most difficult possible to get accomplished. 

* Napoleon's second sister, the Princess Borghese, 
t Sir Robert Wilson. 



l82i.] LORD LAUDERDALE. 369 

" The different opinions Lauderdale and I have of 
late entertained makes no difference in his manner to 
me. There is not an atom of anything artificial in 
him, and he sat down to dinner yesterday with us four 
in his green ribbon, just as he did with us at Brussells. 
Apropos to his green ribbon : he told us that the day 
the King gave it him, and almost immediately after, he 
attended an appointment he had with Lord Bathurst 
... so he took that opportunity of saying : — ' His 
Majesty, my lord, has just forced upon me the Knight- 
hood of the Thistle.' — ' How?' replied Lord Bathurst 
with the greatest surprise, 'who has made the vacancy?' 
— ' I don't know anything about that,' says Lauderdale, 
' but all I do know is that the King has just made/owr 
of us ! ' . . . Then again, Lauderdale says when the 
King knighted these four so unexpectedly to them 
all, Melville, who was one, said : — ' Has your Majesty 
mentioned it to Lord Liverpool?' — 'Not a word of it, 
my good lord,' says old Prinney, * it is not the least 
necessary, I assure you.' — To you and me, this was 
very pretty humor, I think, and if Prinney never did 
anything worse, I, for one, would most willingly 
forgive him.* ... 

"Now for another of Lauderdale's stories. You 
know his connection with the Duke of York and all 
about him. He was executor, it seems, to the Duchess ; 
so, before the poor woman was buried, the Minister 
from the Elector of Hesse requested an audience of 
Lauderdale, the object of which was to say that, as the 
Duke no doubt would marry again, he had thought it 
his duty to mention that the Elector, his master, had 
a daughter whom he thought well qualified to be the 
Duke's second wife, and, well-knowing Lauderdale's 
great influence with the Duke, he had judged it right 
to make this early application to him. About a week 
after the Duchess's funeral, Lauderdale mentioned this 
to the Duke, who immediately said : — 'This is the second 
application to me, for the King has communicated to 
me his wishes that I should marry again ; but my mind 

* It was, of course, contrary to constitutional custom ; because, 
albeit the Sovereign is the Fountain of Honour, Ministers are the 
recognised channels through which such honours flow ; and such 
channels do not usually serve to irrigate the Opposition. 



370 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

is quite made up to do no such thing, and so I have 
given the King to understand.' 

"Not so, however, our dear Prinney. His mind 
is clearly made up, according to Lauderdale, to have 
another wife, and all his family are of that opinion. 
He goes straight for Hanover and Vienna after his 
Irish trip, so probably he will pick up something 
before his return at Xmas. . . ." 

" Cantley, Sept. 3rd. 

". . . Lauderdale left us on Wednesday. Mrs. 
Taylor and myself had each of us a good deal of 
conversation with him separately about Brougham. 
To me, he avowed his old opinion as to Brougham's 
insanity, and renewed his old question whether ' I 
had any doubt' on the subject. He told me all that 
Brougham himself had told me as to him (B.) being 
the first person to propose the divorce, and he added 
that Lord Hutchinson had no more to do with the 
concern than he, Lauderdale, had — that Brougham 
persuaded him [Lord Hutchinson] to go over to St. 
Omer's merely as a friend, and then decoyed him into 
making the proposal, upon the ground that the Queen 
would suspect any proposition that came from him — B. 
... I said to Lauderdale — ' How could Hutchinson 
under such circumstances practice the forbearance he 
did ? ' — ' Because,' said L., * he must have fought 
Brougham and ruined him for ever, and he gene- 
rously preferred sacrificing his own feelings and 
himself. It was a question much agitated in the 
family. Kit Hutchinson * was for war with Brougham, 
but Lord H. would let nothing be done. Had ever 
man such an escape as Brougham ? To Mrs. Taylor, 
Lauderdale said that he (L.) was the first man 
Brougham spoke to in the spring of 1819 on the 
subject of the divorce, desiring him to forward the 
proposal either to the King or the Government, but 
that he (L.) positively refused, asking B. at the same 
time if it was not highly indelicate for such a proposal 
to come from him. Upon the whole, I am quite con- 
vinced that Brougham's intention was to sacrifice the 

* The Hon. Christopher H. Hutchinson, M.P. for Cork, younger 
brother of Lord Hutchinson. 



i82i.] GEORGE IV. IN IRELAND. 371 

Queen from motives either of personal ambition or 
revenge ; and I am still more convinced now of what 
I always suspected — that, when he entered the House 
of Commons on the 7th of June (I think it was) last 
year on his return from St. Omer's, his fixed intention 
was to sacrifice her that night by renouncing all 
further support of her, and that he was prevented 
from doing so by finding Bennett and myself taking 
the part we did on that occasion. ... I enclose you 
a copy I have taken of a letter from Lady Glengall 
to Mrs. Taylor — very curious and entertaining. You 
know she has been Lady Conyngham's 'nearest and 
dearest' in former times. . . . You know she is an 
Irishwoman — a niece of old Lord Clare — was at the 
head of Dublin in the days of all its polished and 
profligate society ; and nothing can be so natural, 
I think, as her criticism upon it in its present degraded 
state. In her days, Conyngham was in poverty, and 
Lady Conyngham owed her first introduction to 
Dublin high life exclusively to Lady Glengall. . . ." 



Countess oj Glengall to Mrs, Taylor. 

" Dublin, Aug. 27th. 

" Now then, to perform my promise ! but it would 
require the wit of a Creevey, the pen of a Pindar * 
or the pencil of a Gilray to do justice to the scene. 
Bedlam broke loose would be tame and rational to 
the madness of this whole nation ; for persons of all 
ranks are collected from all parts to add their madness 
and loyalty to that of this mfl(^-tropolis. The first 
sight that struck my eyes on landing out of the steam- 
boat was the print of his sacred feet cut in the stone, 

well turned in, thus J J\ \ ■ I proceeded a little 



<P'^ 



further, when a triumphal arch struck my astonished 
eyes. It was worthy and only fit for Jack-in-the- 

* /.^. John Wolcott, who, under the pseudonym of *" Peter Pindar," 
\vrote T/te Loiisiad, and a great quantity of occasional, satirical, and 
often scurrilous poems. 



372 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

Green on a May Day. Rags hung from every window 
which are called flags, but which would be taken by 
any one in their senses for the sign of a dyer's shop. 
Not one human being in mourning, and when I 
appeared in sables at a ball, and was asked who I 
mourned for, I was called a Radical ! He was dead 
DRUNK when he landed on the 12th of August — his 
own birthday. They drank all the wine on board the 
steamboat, and then applied to the whiskey punch, 
till he could hardly stand. This accounts for his 
eloquent speech to Lord Kingston, which you may 
have seen in the papers : — * You blackwhiskered 
rascal!' etc. They clawed and pawed him all over, 
and called him his Ethereal Majesty. . . . They 
absolutely kiss his knees and feet, and he is enchanted 
with it all. Alas ! poor degraded country ! I cannot 
but blush for you. Think of their having applauded 
Castlereagh ! It is exactly as if a murderer were 
brought to view the body of his victim, and that he 
was to be applauded for his crime ; for Dublin is but 
the mangled corpse of what it was ; and he — the man 
whom they huzza — the cut-throat who brought it to 
its present condition. 

" Lady C[onyngham] shows but little in public. 
She lives at the King's own lodge at the Phcenix Park. 
He returned from Slane * this day and report says he 
is to pay another visit there. It is much talked of by 
all ranks, and many witticisms are dealt forth. . . . 
Ye Gods ! how they will fight next week. The persons 
who are most active and forward in managing the 
fetes will be undone, as the money subscribed cannot 
be collected. It is a melancholy farce from beginning 
to end, and they have voted him a palace ! In short, 
palaces in the air and drunkards under the table are 
the order of the day. Ireland, I am ashamed of you ! 
He never can stand it : his head must go. Indeed, 
were I to tell you half, you would say that it was 
already going, but in all in which she is concerned, I 
wish to be silent. . . . Far from doing good to this 
wretched country, his visit is making people spend 
money which they don't possess. . . . Nothing is so 
indecent as the total neglect of mourning. He 

* The Marquess Conyngham's seat in county Meath. 



I82I.] END OF THE ROYAL VISIT. 373 

appeared at his private levee, the day after his 
arrival, in a bright blue coat with the brightest 
yellow buttons * . . . 

*' Ever yours, 

" E. Glengall." 

" Cahir, Sept. loth. 

". . . The King I find has cut his voyage short by 
landing at Milford. He was strongly advised to go 
quietly to Holyhead, but Sir Watkinf had refused to 
receive a certain part of his cortege, saying that his 
wife did not know the ladies. ... I never saw Lady C. 
in higher spirits or beauty. She went little into public, 
and the King hurried over all the sights, as he could 
not bear to be away from her five minutes.^ Old Sid- 
mouth was never sober : the newspapers are perfectly 
accurate on this, as on many other occasions. . . . The 
Catholics think they are quite triumphant and sure 
of their emancipation, whilst his Majesty's nods and 
winks to the High Churchmen have quite set their 
friends at ease with regard to his intentions. It is 
humbug!! and on every side; but the Duke of Leinster, 
Lord Meath and the Irish Whigs are become quite as 
well educated courtiers as your Devonshires and 
others that shall be nameless. ..." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Cantley, 13th Sept., 1821. 

". . . My little friend, the youngest Copley,§ can 
never resist touching up John George [Lambton] for 

* " Blomfield tells me that the King intends to wear mourning at 
his private levee, and crape round his arm for the rest of the time. It 
was not easy, I learn, to persuade him to \}!!i\%''''\TheCroker Papers, 
i. 201], Mr. Croker was present with the King in Dublin. 

t Sir W. W. Wynn, 4th baronet of Wynnstay. 

X " The King went minutely through the Museum and other parts 
of the interior. Whether this tired him or that he was too impatient 
to get to Slane, I cannot tell — perhaps both ; but he did not appear 
on the lawn for above four minutes. . . . Great disappointment, and 
some criticism, which five minutes more would have prevented" {The 
Croker Papers, i. 206]. 

§ Afterwards married to 3rd Earl Grey. 



374 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIV. 

one of his sublimities. The first day he was here he 
said he considered ;^40,ooo a year a moderate income 
— such a one as a man might jog on with. This was 
when we were alone ; but it was too good to be lost, 
and . . . yesterday at breakfast, when we were dis- 
cussing Lord Harewood's fortune, little Cop said with 
becoming gravity 'she believed it exceeded a couple 
oijogsr''' 

On 14th August, when Queen Caroline's body was 
being removed for embarkation at Colchester, a serious 
riot took place in the streets, during which two persons 
lost their lives. At the coroner's inquest upon the 
bodies, the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder 
against some of the Life Guards. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Gosforth House, 28th Sept., 1821. 

". . . As you are all soldiers in your hearts, I send 
you a letter I got from Sefton last Sunday, with his 
opinion touching the Life Guards. By the by, Lambton 
sent up ;^5oo from Cantley as his subscription for buy- 
ing Wilson an annuity equal to the pay he has lost. . . ." 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey, enclosed in above. 

*' Paris, 13th Sept., 1821. 

". . . Let me know what you are at. I take it for 
granted you are red hot against the Life Guards ; if 
so, I don't agree with you ; and if I had followed my 
inclination, 1 should have subscribed for them. I 
think they are always infamously treated by the mob, 
and are always much too forbearing; but never so 
much as on the recent occasion. As for the Govern- 
ment, they ought to be impaled, and I hope they will. 
What will become of Brougham's silk gown ? , . . I 
hear the Whigs have great hopes of coming in. I 
sincerely hope they will be disappointed. . . . 

" Yours ever, 

" Sefton." 

* Mr. Lambton, created Earl of Durham in 1833, henceforward 
appears in these letters as " King Jog." 



( 375 ) 



CHAPTER XV. 

1822. 
Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Brooks's, Feby. 8th, 1822. 
"... 1 dine at Sefton's again to-day. Did I tell 
you that Albemarle is to be married on Monday to 
' Charlotte ' Hunlock ? * Such is the case. The lady 
is 45, which is all very well if he must be married. 

" I2th Feb. 

"... I dined with my lord and my lady and the 
young ladies at i before 4, and we all agreed it was 
much the best hour to dine at. We were in the house 
by 10 minutes after 5, just as Brougham got up, and 
of course I heard every word of his speech, and of 
Castlereagh's answer to him.f It is the fashion to 
praise Brougham's speech more than it deserves — at 
least in my opinion. It was free from faults, I admit, 
or very nearly so ; and that 1 think was its principal 
merit. Castlereagh's was an impudent, empty answer, 
clearly showing the monstrous embarrassments the 
Ministers are under, as to managing both their pecu- 
niary resources and their House of Commons. The 
division was a very great one — under all the circum- 
stances a most extraordinary one. The effect of the 
motion, if carried, was to take off 6 or 7 millions of 
taxes at once. . . . Against this sweeping motion the 

* The 3rd Earl of Albemarle [1772-1849]. Married his second 
wife, Miss Charlotte Hunloke, nth February, 1822. 

t Brougham's motion was upon the distressed state of the country, 
and for a reduction of taxation. 

2 D 



Zy6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

Government could only produce 212 votes, and for it 
were found such men as Davenport M.P. for Cheshire, 
Walter Burrell and Curtis members for Sussex, John 
Fane for Oxfordshire, Lawley for Warwickshire, Sir 
John Boughey for Staffordshire, and a good many 
Tory members for boroughs. Tierney thought the 
motion too strong, and would not and did not vote, 
and we had 21 of our men shut out — Lambton with a 
dinner at his own house, Bennett, Cavendishes and 
others. Tom Dundas, Chaloner and Ramsden, who 
had all come up from Yorkshire on purpose, were in 
the same scrape; Lord John Russell and others the 
same." 

" London, i6th Feby. 

"... I dined at Sefton's with the ladies. Brougham 
and Ferguson before four, and was in the House some 
time before Castlereagh began; and when he did turn 
off, such hash was never delivered by man. The folly 
of him — his speech as a composition in its attempt at 
style and ornament and figures, and in its real vulgarity, 
bombast and folly, was such as, coming from a man of 
his order, with 30 years' parliamentary experience and 
with an audience quite at his devotion, was such as 1 
say amounted to a perfect miracle. To be sure our 
Brougham as a rival artist with him in talent and 
composition, play'd the devil with him, and made a 
great display. ... 1 thought I should have died with 
laughing when Castlereagh spoke gravely and hand- 
somely of the encreased cleanliness of the country 
from the encreased excise revenue of soap. . . ." 

" Brooks's, Feby. 28th. 

" My bejiefitv^&nX. off last night as well as possible.* 
The ' front row ' of course could not attend, so I went 
down and occupied it with myself and my books, 
with Folkestone on one side of me and Bennet on the 
other. I disported myself for upwards of an hour 
with Bankes, Finance Committees and ' high and 
efficient ' public men. . . . Our lads were in extacies, 

* It was a motion to curtail the powers of the Government under 
the Civil Offices Pensions Act of 18 17. Creevey's speech occupies nine 
pages of Hansard. 



i822.] CREEVEY'S ACTIVITY. 377 

and kept shouting and cheering me as I went on, with 
the greatest perseverance. Brougham and Sefton 
were amongst my bottle holders in the front row, and 
in common with all our people complimented me 
hugely. . . . Petty asked me how Hume came off 
last night. Apropos to Hume, never was a villain 
more compleatly defeated than Croker,* and so it is 
admitted on all hands, so that our Joe is raised again 
to the highest pinnacle of fame for his accuracy and 
arithmetic. . . . Here is Grey, publickly damning the 
newspapers for reporting my speech so badly, but he 
has ' seen enough to satisfy himself it must have been 
very good.' " 

"March 15th. 

"... I made a very good speech (altho' you will 
find little trace of it in the newspapers), and rolled 
the new Buckingham Board of Controul about to 
their heart's content, and to the universal satisfaction 
of the House. Tierney of course betrayed me by his 
hollow support, and then I had all the weight of 
Canning's jokes to sustain, evidently prepared and 
fired upon me in the successive, and of course suc- 
cessful, peals. ... I must, or ought to, regret very 
much that I let Canning off so easily ; because, to do 
the House justice, they gave me perfectly fair play, 
and when I fired into the 'Idle Ambassador' at Lisbon, 
I had him dead beat. He dropt his head into his 
chest, and evidently skulked from what he thought 
might come. ... It was a great, and perhaps the only 
opportunity of shewing up the Joker's life and what 
it has all ended in — banishment to India from want of 
honesty. ... I think I shall have full measure of 
these bridal visits. I dine at Ly. Anson's to-day, on 
Sunday at McDonald's, on Thursday with the young 
people at the Duke of Norfolk's, to-morrow with the 
iVhigs at Ridley's." 

" Brooks's, i6th March. 

" I can't get the better of my chagrin at not having 
done myself justice upon Canning the other night. . . . 

* A dispute between Joseph Hume and J. W. Croker, Secretary to 
the Admiralty, upon the Navy Estimates. 



378 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

I dined at Ly. Anson's yesterday. We had Coke * and 
Ly. Anne, Miss Coke, Lord and Ly. Rosebery, 
Digby and Lady Andover,t Hinchcliffe (Ld. Crewe's 
nephew), Mr. Lloyd and myself. I sat next Lady 
Anson by her desire. I was introduced both hj her 
and Coke to Lady Anne, who, to my mind, has neither 
beauty nor elegance nor manners to recommend her, 
but if ever I saw a deep one, it is her. She was per- 
fectly at her ease. On the other hand, I never saw 
more perfect behaviour than that of all the ladies of 
the family. Miss Coke I thought was low. We had, 
however, a very merry dinner, and I went upstairs 
and staid till eleven. I kept up a kind of running fire 
upon Coke, and Ly. Anson kept her hand upon my 
arm all the time, pinching me and keeping me in check 
when she thought I was going too far. ... I was at 
Whitehall last night — ^Ly. Ossulston, Miss Lemon, 
Ferguson, Sefton and Vaughan, and then I came here 
(Brooks's), and was fool enough to sit looking over a 
whist table till between 4 and 5 this morning. Sefton 
and I walked away together, he having won by the 
evening a thousand and twenty pounds." 

" April 26th. 

". . . Another event of yesterday was Denman 
being elected Common Serjeant by the Common 
Council of London. The Queen's counsel, who on 
that occasion compared her husband to Nero ! . . . 
This was homage to Denman's honesty. I don't 
think Brougham could have succeeded, superior as 
he is to the other in talent." 

" Brooks's, April 27th. 
" I had a long conversation here to-day with 
Thanet.t I must say, ' altho' ' it might appear to any- 
body but you parasitical in his member to say so, that 
in agreeableness and honesty he surpasses all his 

* Thomas Coke of I^olkham, M.P. for Norfolk, created Earl of 
Leicester in 1837. Married his second wife, Lady Anne Keppel, on 
26th February, 1822, mother of the present earl. 

t Viscountess Andover, widow of the 15th Earl of Suffolk's eldest 
son, married in 1806 Admiral Sir Henry Digby. 

X Sackville Tufton, 9th Earl of Thanet. 



I822.] IN THE WHIG CAMP. 379 

order — easy. To-morrow I dine with Sefton. Here 
is little Derby sitting by my side — very, very old in 
looks, but as merry as ever. Here is Brougham, too, 
but in a most disgnmtled, unsatisfactory state. His 
manners to me are barely civil, but I take no notice, 
presuming that time will bring him round, and if it 
don't— I can't help it." 

" Brooks's, 3rd May. 

". . . Your philosophy is well and solidly 
grounded. These are feeble grievances as long as 
you are all well : nay, I might add, what are griev- 
ances like these to those of Lord and Ly. Salisbury 
— the one, the descendant of old Cecil and aged 80 
years — the other, the head and ornament and 
patroness of the beau monde of London for the last 
40 years, and yet to have ;^2ooo per ann. taken out 
of their pockets at last by a rude and virtuous House 
of Commons. ... If this distress will but pinch 
these dirty, shabby landed voters two sessions more, 
there's no saying at what degree of purity we shall 
arrive. Meantime, all your place and pension holders 
must shake in their shoes. . . . Here is Grey in such 
roaring spirits, and so affable that I should not be 
surprised at the offer of a place from him when he 
comes in, which I am sure he now thinks must be 
very soon indeed. But Abercromby for my money : 
he told me last night it zvas all over with the present 
men." 

" 7th May. 
". . . Brougham was sitting at Holland House on 
Sunday morning with my lady and various others, 
when a slight thunderstorm came on, and, according 
to invariable custom, my lady bolted. Presently the 
page summoned Brougham and conducted him to 
my lady's bedchamber, where he found all the 
wmdows closed and the candles lighted. She said 
she did not like to be left alone, so she pressed him 
to stay and dine, but upon his saying he must keep 
his engagement at Ridley's — ' Ah,' said she, ' you will 
meet Creevey there, I suppose. What caii be the 
reason he never comes near me?' — We both of us 
laughed heartily at her conscience and fears thus 



38o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

smiting her when she thought herself in danger ; so 
I must leave her to another storm or two before I 
go to her." 

" Denbies, 28th May. 

". . . Mrs. Taylor says Lady Glengall told her 
last night she had not a single ticket left for the 
Hibernian ball out of her 100. . . . You know the 
original plan was to have had the affair at Willis's 
Rooms. The leading female managers being Lady 
Hertford and Dowr. Richmond, &c., &c. The block- 
heads, it seems, made up their list of patronesses 
without including Ly. Conyngham in the number, 
and she was not a lady to submit quietly to such an 
insult ; so she started this opposition ball at the 
Opera House, with the King as patron, and all the 
same ladies as patronesses that were on the other 
list, except Lady Hertford and Dowr. Richmond. The 
former is incensed at this practical retort from her 
successful rival * beyond all bounds. ... If you 
wish for anything in the public line, let me tell you 
that on Thursday or Friday last, Castlereagh, being 
in Hyde Park on horseback, met Tavistock, and tho' 
he has very slight acquaintance with him, he turned 
his horse about, and lost no time in unbosoming him- 
self upon the state of public affairs. He described 
the torment of carrying on the Government under 
the general circumstances of the country as beyond 
endurance, and said if he could once get out of it, no 
power on earth should get him into it again." f 

"Brooks's, 15th June. 

". . . As it is not very often I am in the literary 
line, let me boast of having read three hours this 
morning, being very much delighted with a new book 
I have got. It is the poems and other pieces of Sir 
Charles Hanbury-Williams, grandfather to the present 
Lord Essex. . . . As a wit and poet, I assure you the 
Welchman is of high order. . . . Then, what with 
text and notes, you have the whole town before 5^ou 
— male and female — political and domestic — during 
30 years of the last century. . . ." 

* In the affections of the King. 

t Within a few weeks of this Castlereagh died by his own hand. 



1822.] «A VOICE FROM ST. HELENA." 381 

" 1 8th June. 

". . . On Saturday I dined at John Williams's in 
Lincoln's Inn, being carried there by Lambton in his 
coach, protected by two footmen. Sunday I dined at 
Cowper's with Sefton, Jerseys, Ossulston, George 
Lambs, Carnarvon, Kensington and Wm. Lambe. . . . 
I am sorry to find that my friend Sir Charles Hy. 
Williams has some great objections to him on the 
score of delicacy." 

"Cantley, July 21. 

". . . Well, I wonder whether you will be any- 
thing like as much interested by O'Meara and Buona- 
parte as I have been and am still. I can think of 
nothing else. ... I am perfectly satisfied Buonaparte 
said all that O'Meara puts into his mouth. Whether 
that is all true is another thing. . . . There are parts 
of the conversations, too, which are quite confirmed, 
or capable of being so, by evidence. For instance — 
when O'Meara lent him the Edinburgh Review, just 
come out, with a sketch of his life in it, he expresses 
to O'Meara the greatest surprise at some facts there 
stated, as he says he is sure they are, or were, only 
known to his own family. It turns out the article in 
question was written by Allen, and the facts referred 
to were told to Lord Holland when at Rome by 
Cardinal Fesch. Again ; the conversations which 
Nap states to have taken place between him and 
young de Stael, the latter says are perfectly correct 
as to the periods and the subject of them, tho' he 
denies some of Nap's statements in them to be true. 
It is very difficult to predict what is to cause any 
permanent impression or effect, but, judging from 
my own feelings, I shd. say these conversations of 
Nap's are calculated to produce a very strong and 
very universal one upon very many subjects, and 
upon most people in future times, as well as our 
own. * 

* Lord Rosebery's is the latest hand that has dealt with the 
prisoner of St. Helena, and that with a very sympathetic touch. Of 
O'Meara's book he says — "^ Voice f?'07n St. Helejia, "by O'Meara 
is perhaps the most popular of all the Longwood narratives, and few 



382 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

The following extract from a letter by Lord 
Derby refers to the candidature of his grandson, 
afterwards fourteenth earl, for Stockbridge, and 
marks the first public appearance of the future 
"Rupert of debate." 

" Knowsley, loth August, 1822. 
" My dear Creevey, 

" I last night received your very kind letter 
and take the earliest opportunity of thanking you for 
the communication of Ld. Sefton's letter concerning 
Edward Stanley's debut at Stockbridge. It is most 
gratifying to me to hear him so well spoken of . . . 
You could not have told me anything that was more 
acceptable to me, and I feel most grateful to you for 
this attention. . . . Speaking in Parliament is, how- 
ever, so very different thing from speaking on the 
hustings or at an election dinner that I shall still 
be very anxious for his success in the house, and I 
earnestly hope that he may not be in too great a 
hurry to begm. . . ." 

Lord Castlereagh, who succeeded his father as 
second Marquess of Londonderry on 8th April, 182 1, 
but who will always be best recognised under the 
title which he raised to distinction, perished by his 
own hand on 13th August, 1822. The circumstances 

publications ever excited so great a sensation as this worthless book. 
Worthless it undoubtedly is, in spite of its spirited flow and the vivid 
interest of the dialogue. No one can read the volumes of Forsyth, in 
which are printed the letters of O'Meara to Lowe, or the handy and 
readable treatise in which Mr. Seaton distils the essence of these 
volumes, and retain any confidence in O'Meara's facts. He may 
sometimes report conversations correctly, or he may not, but in any 
doubtful case it is impossible to accept his evidence. He was the 
confidential servant of Napoleon ; unknown to Napoleon, he was 
the confidential agent of Lowe ; and behind both their backs he was 
the confidential informant of the British Government, for whom he 
wrote letters to be circulated to the Cabinet. Testimony from such 
a source is obviously tainted" \Napoleon: the Last Phase^ 1900]. 



i822.] THE FREQUENCY OF SUICIDE. 383 

are too well known to require further reference, ex- 
cept to note that the different causes mentioned by 
Mr, Creevey to account for this great statesman's 
derangement are wide of the mark. Castlereagh had 
submitted to a peculiarly nefarious system of black- 
mail by some villains who had entrapped him, and 
the agony of apprehension resulting from this, act- 
ing upon a mind perhaps overstrained in the public 
service during a long and peculiarly agitated period, 
brought about the disaster. 

Suicide was of painfully frequent occurrence 
among public men in the first half of the nineteenth 
century. Paull, the enemy of Marquess Wellesley, 
in 1808 — Samuel Whitbread in 1815 — Sir Samuel 
Romilly in 18 18 — and now Castlereagh in 1822, are 
among the figures who disappeared in this melan- 
choly manner from the stage depicted in these 
papers. It may be idle to speculate upon the source 
of a tendency which prevails no longer among our 
legislators; but those who have had occasion to 
peruse the memoirs and study the social habits of the 
period under consideration, cannot have overlooked 
two agencies which must have sapped all but the 
most robust constitutions. One was the habit of hard 
drinking, encouraged by all who could afford to give 
hospitality, in emulation of the example furnished by 
those who set the fashions. The other was the 
constant recourse to drastic physic and excessive 
bleeding to remedy the disorders induced by high 
living. If these were not contributing causes to 
suicide, their discontinuance at all events coincides 
with a marked reduction in its frequency. 

It had been agreeable to trace in Creevey's corre- 
spondence some signs of large-hearted regret for the 



384 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

removal of one who had borne so great a part in the 
national history, and had so long led the House of 
Commons. The spirit of party seems to have been 
too acrid at the time to admit any infusion of gentler 
sentiment towards a fallen foe. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Cantley, 14 Aug., 1822. 

". . . And now for Castlereagh — what an extra- 
ordinary event ! I take for granted his self-destruction 
has been one of the common cases of pressure upon 
the brain which produces irritability, ending in de- 
rangement. Taylor will have it, and Ferguson also 
believes in this nonsense, that Bonaparte's charge 
against him as told by O'Meara, of his having bagged 
part of Nap's money has had something to do with it. 
Do you remember my telling you of a conversation 
Castlereagh forced upon Tavistock in the Park in the 
spring — about his anxiety to quit office and politicks 
and Parliament ? * He did the same thing to Ferguson 
one of the last nights at Almack's, stating his great 
fatigue and exhaustion and anxiety to be done with 
the concern altogether — just as poor Whitbread did 
to me both by letter and conversation two years 
before his death. It is a curious thing to recollect 
that one night at Paris in 181 5 when I was at a 
ball at the Beau's, Castlereagh came up to me and 
asked if I had not been greatly surprised at Whit- 
bread's death, and the manner of it, and then we had 
a good deal of conversation on the subject. 

" Death settles a fellow's reputation in no time, and 
now that Castlereagh is dead, I defy any human being 
to discover a single feature of his character that can 
stand a moment's criticism. By experience, good 
manners and great courage, he managed a corrupt 
House of Commons pretty well, with some address. 
This is the whole of his intellectual merit. He had 
a limited understanding and no knowledge, and his 

* See p. 380. 




VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH. 



[To face p. 384. 



f] 



l822.] CASTLEREAGH'S DEATH. S^S 

whole life was spent in an avowed, cold-blooded con- 
tempt of every honest public principle. A worse, or, 
if he had had talent and ambition for it, a more 
dangerous, public man never existed. However, he 
was one of Nap's imbeciles, and as the said Nap over 
and over again observes, posterity will do them both 
justice. . . . 

" Now, what will come next ? Will the perfidious 
Canning forego his Indian prospects — stay with his 
wife and daughter to succeed Castlereagh. I think 
not. I think the former enmity between him and 
Eldon has been too publickly exposed and encreased, 
by their late sparring match upon the Marriage Act, 
to let them come together. Then I think the Beau 
will claim and have the Foreign Office, and Peel will 
claim to lead in the House of Commons. Mais-nous 
verrojis ! I suppose the King will approve the step 
Lord Castlereagh has taken, as he was Lady Conyng- 
ham's abhorrence, and Lady Castlereagh would not 
speak to Lady Conyngham. 

" What a striking thing this death of Castlereagh 
is under all the circumstances ! This time last year 
he was revelling with his Sovereign in the country he 
had betrayed and sold, over the corpse of the Queen 
whom he had so inhumanly exposed and murdered. 
Ah, Prinney, Prinney ! your time will come, my boy ; 
and then your fame and reputation will have fair play 
too. . . . Taylor had a letter from Denison yesterday 
with a good deal of London jaw in it, and some of it 
is curious enough considering the quarter it comes 
from.* Bloomfield is to go to Stockholm as our 
minister! and then Denison says, had he not been 
discharged, the Privy Purse was in such a state. 
Parliament must have been applied to. Bloomfield's 
defence is, the Privy Purse was exhausted by pay- 
ing for diamonds for Lady Conyngham ; and all 
these honors and emoluments showered on him 
by the Crown are given him to make him hold his 
tongue. ..." 

* William Joseph Denison of Denbies, M.P., was brother to the 
Marchioness of Conyngham. 



386 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Carlisle, 19th Aug. 

". . . Well ! this is really a considerable event in 
point of size. Put all their other men together in 
one scale, and poor Castlereagh in the other — single, 
he plainly weighed them down. . . . One can't help 
feeling a little for him, after being pitted against him 
for several years pretty regularly. It is like losing a 
connection suddenly. Also, he was a gentleman, and 
the only one amongst them. But there are material 
advantages ; and among them I reckon not the least 
that our excellent friends that are gone, and for 
whom we felt so bitterly, are, as it were, revenged. 
I mean Whitbread and Romilly.* I cannot describe 
to you how this idea has filled my mind these last 24 
hours. No mortal will now presume to whisper a 
word against these great and good men — I mean in 
our time ; for there never was any chance of their 
doing so in after time. All we wanted was a gag for 
the present, and God knows here we have it in 
absolute perfection. Hitherto we were indulged with 
the enemy's silence, but it was by a sort of forbear- 
ance ; 7iow we have it of right. 

As for the question of his successor — who cares 
one farthing about it ? We know the enemy is in- 
calculably damaged anyhow. Let that suffice ! He 
has left behind him the choice between the Merry 
Andrew and the Spinning Jenny ; f and the Court — 
the vile, stupid, absurd, superannuated Court — may 
make its election and welcome. The damaged Prig 
or the damaged Joker signifies very little. I rather 
agree with Taylor that they will take Wellington for 
the Secy, of State, and that Canning will still go to 
India. ... I rather think I shd. prefer the very 
vulnerable Canning remaining at home. By the way, 
I hope to live to see medical men like Bankhead tried 
for manslaughter, at the least. What think you of 
removing things from poor C, and then leaving him 
alone, even for 5 minutes?. . .'' 

* Both of whom committed suicide. 
t Canning and Peel. 



i822.] GEORGE IV. IN SCOTLAND. 387 

George IV. made a royal progress to Edinburgh in 
August of this year. Thanks, in great measure, to 
the influence of Sir Walter Scott, his Majesty was 
received in the northern capital with far more respect 
and enthusiasm than he had been accustomed of late 
to experience in the south. 

From — Stuart to Mr. Ferguson of Raith. 

*' Edinburgh, 17th Aug., 1823. 

"... I send you a Scotsman [newspaper], the 
Account in which as to the King is pretty correct. 
He has been received by the people in the most 
respectful and orderly manner. All have turn'd out 
in their holiday cloaths, and in numbers which are 
hardly credible. ... I have been much disappointed 
to-day with the levee. . . . There was nothing in- 
teresting or imposing about it. A vast crowd, with 
barely standing room for two hours : afterwards 
moved to the Presence Chamber, where no one was 
for a minute. . . . The King did not seem to move a 
muscle, and we all asked each other, when we came 
away, what had made us take so much trouble. He 
was dressed in tartan. Sir Walter Scott has ridiculously 
made us appear to be a nation of Highlanders, and 
the bagpipe and the tartan are the order of the day." 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Lancaster, 21st August. 
"... I dined the day before yesterday at old 
Bolton's circuit dinner, and found Canning there. I 
had a good deal of talk with him about Castlereagh, 
and he spoke very properly. Neither of us canted 
about the matter ; but he shewed the right degree of 
feeling. I don't think he is going to be sent for, and 
^m pretty sure he will go to India. If they are kind 
enough to do so excellent a thing as try it with the 
low, miserable Spinning Jenny,* thank God for it ! 

* Peel. 



388 ' THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

Only lose no time in reminding Barnes, as from your- 
self, of the magazine of ammunition for attacking him 
the moment the arrangement is made — I mean, in the 
debates of 1819, when I laid it into him in a merciless 
manner. It is pretty correctly given, and is a fund of 
attack ; the rather that the fellow was caught in the 
fact of the very lowest trick ever man attempted. It 
was like having his hand seized while picking a 
pocket. 

"Yours ever, 

"H. B." 

" Lancaster, 22nd Aug. 

"... I hope you are sufficiently angry at the cursed 
cant of the liberal daily papers about Castlereagh. I 
ought rather to say their childish giving vent to feel- 
ings, and bepraising C. absurdly and falsely, merely 
because he is dead. Such stuff takes away all authority 
from the press, and makes attacks reall};^ of no kind of 
importance. If they go on upon all subjects upon the 
mere impulse of the moment, they will soon cease to 
be any more attended to than a parcel of infants or 
lunatics." 

" Brougham, 24 Aug. 

"Dear C, 

"I long to know your speculations upon these 
times, as I have heard nothing from you since we 
were bereaved of our Castlereagh; therefore I can't 
be sure that you have survived that event. . . . Don't 
believe in Canning's coming in. He may be unwise 
enough to desire it, and Jenky* may try for him, and 
it may go so far as a kind of offer ; but nothing short 
of the event will ever convince me of his being in 
the Cabinet with these men and with this King. . . ." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Cantley, Aug. 24, 1822. 
"This Royalty is certainly the very devil. . . . 
Sussex arrived on Wednesday between 3 and 4, 
himself in a very low barouche and pair, and a 

* Lord Liverpool, 



1822.] THE DUKE OF SUSSEX. 389 

thundering coach behind with four horses — his staff, 
Stephenson, a son of Albemarle's, a Gore, servants, 
groom of the chambers, a black valet-de-charnbre and 
two footmen, clad en militaires. ... It has been my 
good fortune during his stay here to be considered by 
all parties as his fittest companion. Accordingly, I 
had a tete-a-tete with him of nearly /owr hours together 
on Thursday, and of 2^ yesterday, and my health has 
really been greatly impaired by this calamity. He has 
every appearance of being a good-natured man, is very 
civil and obliging, never says anything that makes 
you think him foolish; but there is a nothmgness in 
him that is to the last degree fatiguing. . . . Althorpe 
was here yesterday, and told me there had certainly 
been rejoicings in the neighbouring market towns 
upon Castlereagh's death. . . . 

"Robert Ferguson* tells me that he has seen a 
great deal of Major Poppleton lately, the officer of the 
53rd who was stationed about Bonaparte. Bob says 
Poppleton is quite as devoted to Nap, and as adverse 
to Lowe as O'Meara, and that all the officers of the 
53rd were the same. . . . Poppleton has a beautiful 
snuff-box poor Nap gave him. What would I give to 
have such a keepsake from him, and, above all, to have 
seen him. O'Meara has a tooth of his he drew, which 
he always carries about with him. . . ." 

*' Cantley, Aug. 29. 

". . . Did I tell you that our Sussex is to come back 
to us for Doncaster races? . . . Miss Poyntz has 
refused Lord Gower,t as has Miss Bould of Bould 
Hall Lord Clare. . . . Miss Seymour (Minny) when 
she landed at Calais had O'Meara's book in her hand, 
which, when recognised, was instantly seized by the 
police. What a specimen of a great nation and the 
proud situation of the Bourbons ! However, Sussex 
told me the book was already translated into both 
French and German, so the Hereditary Asses of all 
nations won't escape, with all their precautions. Did 
I tell you that Sussex says none of his sisters will 

* Son of General [Sir] Ronald Ferguson, M.P., originally in the 
53rd Foot, succeeded his brother in 1840 as laird of Raith. 
t Afterwards and Duke of Sutherland. 



390 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

touch Ly. Conyngham, which gives mortal offence to 
Prinney ; nor can their justification be very agreeable, 
for they say, after his insisting upon their not speak- 
ing to the late Queen, how can they do so to Ly. C? 

" Cantley, Sept. 3. 
". . . Maria Copley says Miss Canning is quite 
broken-hearted at going [to India]. She says that 
her forte is her memory, as proof of which she gave 
me two instances. One was, getting by heart in a 
few hours the 39 Articles : the other was, in a some- 
what longer time, repeating the whole of a Times 
newspaper, from beginning to end, advertisements 
and all. Maria says Lady Charlotte Greville, having 
dined at the Pavilion not long ago, and having sat 
next the King, describes him as grown the greatest 
bore she ever saw. . . . His irritability of temper, they 
say, is become quite intolerable ; his prevailing subject 
of complaint is his old a^e, at which he feels, of course, 
the most royal indignation. . . ." 

" Cantley, Sept. 7, 1822. 
". . . Maria Copley has read me a letter from Lady 
Francis Leveson from her new and noble parents' 
Cock Robin Castle,* at the other extremity of Scot- 
land. It is really not amiss as an exhibition of the 
tip-top noble domestic. Lord Francis f had left 
Edinbro immediately upon Lord Stafford's! illness, 
and Lady Francis followed immediately to pass a 
month there [at Dunrobin]. She says — * Figure to 
yourself my introduction into a room about 12 feet 
square, the company being Lord and Lady Stafford, 
Lord and Lady Wilton, Lord and Lady Elizabeth 
Belgrave, Lord and Lady Surrey, and Lord Gower. 
A table in the midst of the room, highly polished, I 
admit, but not a book nor a piece of work to be seen : 
the company formed into a circle, and every man and 
his wife sitting next each other, after the manner of 
the Marquis of Newcastle's family in the picture in his 
book.'" 

* Dunrobin. 

t Afterwards created Earl of Ellesmere. 

X Created Duke of Sutherland in 1833. 



l822.] CANNING ASSUMES THE LEAD. 39I 

"Cantley, Sept, 15th, 1S22. 
". . . Amongst other people whom 1 saw at the 
ball was Tom Smith the hunter and M.P.* Upon 
my saying Canning had made a bad thing of it in 
bringing in no one with him, he said it was quite bad 
enough to have him brought in without any other of 
his set, and that he (Smith) was of Falstaff's opinion 
that Canning was as rotten as a stewed prune, or 
words to that effect. . . ." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Brougham, 14 Sept. 
"Dear C, 

" Many thanks for your letter. 1 had,' how- 
ever, yesterday heard {via Bowood where the Hollands 
are) that all was settled. Canning succeeds to Foreign 
Office, lead of the House, &c. — in short, all of Castle- 
reagh except his good judgt, good manners and bad 
English. . . . Now don't still call me obstinate if I 
withhold my belief till I see them fairly under weigh. 
1 know the Chancellor's f tricks : he is ' the most subtle 
of all the beasts.' . . . The Beau % is still very unwell, 
and was cupped again on Thursday night." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Cantley, Sept. ig. 
". . . What a victim of temper poor Lambton is ! 
He has been complaining to me of his unhappiness. I 
observed in reply that he had a good many of the 
articles men in general considered as tolerable 
ingredients for promoting happiness ; to which he 
replied: — *I don't know that; but I do know that it's 
damned hard that a man with ;^8o,ooo a year can't 
sleep!' He has not much merit but his looks, his 
property and his voice and power of publick speaking. 
He has not the slightest power or turn for conversa- 
tion, and would like to live exclusively on the flattery 

* Thomas Assheton Smith. 

t Lord Eldon. 

X The Duke of WeUington. 

2 E 



392 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

of toadies ; nevertheless, I am doomed to go to Lamb- 
ton : he will hear of nothing less, and I have shirked 
him so often, I suppose I must go. . . ." 



Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"Raby, Sept., 1822. 
"Dear Citizen, 

"Your letter gives me some comfort, and 
indeed much coincides with my own view of the 
Merryman's* case. Certainly he presents more sore 
places to the ejQ of the amateur than most men. 
Moreover his coin is now about cried down — at least 
hardly current. He is stampt as a joker, and therefore 
dare not joke : not to mention that hard figures of 
arithmetick are too hard to be got over by figures 
of rhetorick. All these things, and his gout and 
irritability, I try to console myself withal, but still I 
own I am somewhat low — not so much at what we 
are to have, which is most excellent in its way — but 
at what we have lost, which is by far the best thing 
in the world — namely, the Spinning Jenny,t Vesey, | 
Kew, Bellamy and Co. It was indeed too good a 
thing to happen. . . ." 

" Brougham, Tuesday [Sept., 1822]. 

"... I hope you are sufficiently vexed at Hume 
making such an ass of himself as he did t'other day 
by his stupid vanity and his attack, thro' such vanity, 
on the rest of the Opposition. His kind patronage of 
Archy is only laughable, but to see him splitting on 
that rock (of egotism and vanity) is rather provoking. 
What right has he to talk of the Whigs never coming 
to his support on Parly. Reform ? 1 can remind him 
of their dividing some 120 on it in 1812, when he was 
sitting at Perceval's back, toad-eating him for a place, 
and acting the part of their covert doer of all sorts of 
dirty work in the coarsest and most offensive way, 
thro' the whole battle of the Orders in Council, when 

* Canning, 
t Peel. 

J Right Hon. W. Vesey Fitzgerald, M.P. [1783-1843], after- 
wards Lord Fitzgerald. 



i832.] LORD THANET ON THE SITUATION. 393 

we beat them and him ! I always have defended him 
when that period of his life has been cast in my teeth, 
and on this one ground — that Bentham, Mill, &c., who 
converted him, persuaded me that his former conduct 
was from mere want of education, and that he was 
radically honest. But off hands ! an't please you, 
good Master Joseph! In truth I cannot reckon a 
man's conduct at all pure who shows up others at 
public meetings behind their backs, whom he never 
w^hispers a word against in their places. There is 
extreme meanness in this sneaking way of ingratiating 
himself at their expense, and the utter falsehood of 
the charge is glaring. Parly. Reform has never once 
been touched by him (luckily for the question). The 
motions on it last session were Lord John's and my 
own. His boro' reform professedly steered clear of 
the question. I trust he has been misrepresented, but 
I heard in Scotland that people were everywhere 
laughing at him for his arrogance and vanity." 

Earl of Thanet to Mr, Creevey. 

"... I am just returned from Kent, more disgusted 
than usual at the language and temper of those I saw, 
which I take for a sample of the rest; everybody 
complaining, without an idea that they could do any- 
thing towards attaining relief. Landlords and farmers 
seem to have no other occupation than comparing 
their respective distresses. They ask what is to 
happen. I answer — you will be ruined, and they 
stare like stuck pigs. I could not hear of one Tory 
gentleman who had changed. One booby says it is 
the Poor Rate — another the Tithe— another high 
rents — all omit the real cause, taxation, the mother of 
all evil. It is a besotted country, and may, for aught 
I know, be a proper audience for Mr. Merriman. 

"Brougham has been bidding i^i 5,000 for two 
farms in Westmorland. The seller has taken time to 
consider, and, if he does not nail him, he must have 
found one as insane as himself." 

One is accustomed to associate the introduction of 
the battue with the reign of Queen Victoria, and 



394 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

especially with the Prince Consort, but here we have 
an early example of the practice, and not only the 
practice, but the very term "battue" is applied to 
it. Holkham has long been famed for shooting, but 
it is certainly surprising to find that bags on this 
scale could be made eighty years ago, by men shoot- 
ing with flint-lock muzzle-loaders. There are few 
rab])its in the covers at Holkham now; possibly 
they were more numerous there when George IV, 
was king. 

Viscountess Anson to Mr. Creevey. 

"Holkham, Nov. 5, 1822. 

". . . Though not much of a sportsman yourself, 
you may be living with those who are, and I suppose 
it would be incorrect to write a letter from hence — the 
day after the first battue — without mentioning that 
780 head of game were killed by 10 guns, and that 
25 woodcocks formed a grand feature in the chasse." 

Upon Castlereagh's death, Wellington went on 
the embassy to Verona in his place. It was Canning's 
policy, on succeeding Castlereagh at the Foreign 
Office, to make it appear that his predecessor had 
entered upon an aggressive line in regard to Euro- 
pean complications, from which he — Canning — extri- 
cated the British Cabinet. But in truth Wellington 
carried with him and acted upon instructions drafted 
by Castlereagh himself, whereof the keynote was " to 
observe a strict neutrality." Especially was this so 
in regard to the French invasion of Spain, then 
imminent. "There seems nothing to add to or to 
vary in the course of policy hitherto pursued. Solici- 
tude for the safety of the royal family, observance of 
our obligations with Portugal, and a rigid abstinence 



i822.] CANNING'S VOICE, CASTLEREAGH'S HAND. 395 

from any interference in the internal affairs of that 
country " — these are Castlereagh's own words as 
drafted for his own guidance when he, and not Wel- 
lington, was to have been the British plenipotentiary 
at the Congress ; and they disprove the claim made 
by the partisans of Canning that it was he, not 
Castlereagh, who first established the policy of 
non-intervention in the domestic affairs of foreign 
countries so far as consistent with treaty obligations. 
This was the more notable, because the Emperor of 
Russia, formerly distinguished for liberal views, had 
of late ranged himself in line with the other crowned 
heads of Europe in desiring to repress by force the 
revolutionary movement in Spain, which country, he 
told Wellington, " he considered the headquarters 
of revolution and Jacobinism ; that the King and 
royal family were in the utmost danger, and that so 
long as the revolution in that country should be 
allowed to continue, every country in Europe, and 
France in particular, was unsafe." * 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Farnley, i4tli Nov., 1822. 
"... I am happy to see from the papers that the 
Beau is getting upon his legs again, and I am still 
more happy that he is at Verona instead of that 
terrible fellow Castlereagh. It appears to me im- 
possible after all Wellington has said to me about the 
King of Spain and his perfidy, and with his intimacy 
with Alava, one of Ferdinand's victims, that the Beau 
should be for helping him out of his difficulties. Then 
he knows the Spanish nation better than anybody 
else here — their universal hatred of the French — their 
great resources from their mountains and guerilla 
warfare. In short, I rely with confidence upon him 

* Wellington's Civil Despatches, i. 343. 



39^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 

as the only man who, on this occasion, could keep 
those Royal Imbeciles and Villains of Europe in any 
order, and I consider his being there as our minister 
as quite a godsend. If this vapouring French ministry 
do once cross the Spanish frontier, the devil take 
the hindmost of the Bourbons, both French and 
Spanish." 

Creevey, having had rather a heated correspon- 
dence with Mr. Lambton (afterwards Earl of Durham) 
on political subjects, chiefly connected with an elec- 
tion for York, and being about to meet him at 
Groxteth, felt uncertain as to the terms on which 
they stood together. He therefore wrote to Lamb- 
ton, bluntly seeking for an understanding. 



Mr. Lambton to Mr. Creevey. 

"Howick, Nov. 15, 1822. 

"Dear Creevey, 

"You have already smote me on one cheek, 
and I now, in the true spirit of scriptural precept, 
offer you the other. In other and more profane 
words, you have used me shamefully. You pro- 
mised to come to our races : I kept a room for you 
until the second day after they had begun, altho' beds 
were as scarce as honest men ; yet you neither came 
nor sent me word that you had altered your mind. 

You but I had better stop, or I shall work myself 

up into that vindictive spirit which you deprecate. 

" Now for a proof ot my forgiving disposition. I 
not only shall meet you at Croxteth in perfect amity, 
but shall be happy to take you there, if my time suits 
your convenience. I am to be at Croxteth on Friday 
next, and sleep at Skipton on Thursday night. Skip- 
ton, I fancy, is about 1 5 miles from Farnley, and if you 
will join me there on Friday morning, I will carry 
you and your luggage safely to Croxteth. You must, 
however, break your usual rule, and let me know 
whether this offer suits you or not. . . . Don't talk to 
me about politics — I have done with them. If you 



i822.] MR. COBBETT'S VIEWS. 397 

can tell me anything respecting the Leger — if you 
have any dark horse who is not spavined — I shall 
listen to you with attention ; but as to Verona, the 
Bourbons, Reform, Spain, the Pirates, &c., &c., throw 
them to the dogs : I'll have none on't ! 

" Yours, in the true spirit of Christian feeling, 

"J. G. Lambton." 



Wm. Cobbett to Mr. Fawkes \a candidate for 

Parliamenf\. 

"I2th Nov., 1822. 

". . . The ruin in this part of the country is ^^W£?ra/. 
An unruined farmer is an exception. The Pitt system 
seems destined to fulfil all my prophecies — even 
those that were thought the most wild. Faith ! your 
antagonist Mr. Canning has his hands full. He has 
already discovered what it is to negociate with a debt 
of 800 millions and a dead weight of 100 millions 
hanging round the neck of the country. This was 
one of the points that Windham told me I was mad 
upon. I said — you can have neither war nor peace in 
safety without getting rid of this infernal debt. He 
used to say — 'let us beat the French first.' I used to 
say that to beat them with bank notes was to beat 
ourselves in the end. And thus it has been. The 
country becomes a poor, low, pitiful, feeble, cowardly 
thing, unless we get rid of the debt ; and that is not 
to be got rid of without a reform in the House of 
Commons. The conduct of the Lords has always 
been to me the most surprising thing. Terrified out 
of their wits at Hunt,* who is really as inoffensive as 
Pistol or Bardolph, and hugging to their bosoms the 
Barings, the Ricardos and all that tribe. . . . How- 
ever, it is useless to exclaim. . . . The war used to be 
called an ' eventful period ; ' but this is the eventful 
period for England." 

\* Henry Hunt [1773-1835], radical i politician, commonly known 
as " Orator Hunt." 



39^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Croxteth, Nov. 26, 1822. 

" Well ! I found the King * at Skipton before nine 
on Friday, breakfasting on his own tea, his own sugar, 
liis own bread and even his own butter — all brought 
from Lambton. However, the Monarch was very 
amiable, and barring one volcanic eruption against 
the postboys for losing their way within 5 miles of 
this house, our journey was very agreeable. . . ." 

" Dec. 3rd. 

". . . Lord Hertford owes his blue ribbon to his 
having purchased four seats in Parliament since his 
father's death, and to his avowed intention of dealing 
still more largely in the same commodity. . . . We con- 
tinue to go on quite capitally in this house. I never 
saw Sefton in greater force. I wish you could see the 
manner of both father and son to the dilferent tenants 
we see from time to time on our different shooting and 
coursing excursions. What a contrast to the acid and 
contemptuous Lambton! However, poor devil, he 
pays for it pretty dearly, and will probably be a victim 
to his temper. . . . Lady Georgiana [Molyneux] 
amused me yesterday by telling me of a conversation 
she had with Lady Holland, in which the latter had 
deplored my present hostility to her, and had requested 
Ly. Georgiana's assistance in discovering the cause, 
and producing a reconciliation. . . ." 

"Croxteth, Dec. 12. 

". . . The truth is that all the Whigs are either 
fools or rogues enough to believe that our Monarch 
is really very fond of them, and that (according to the 
angry Boy f who left us yesterday) if we, the Whigs, 
could but arrange our matters between ourselves, the 
Sovereign would be happy to send for us. This is 
all he is waiting for; and with reference to it, Lamb- 
ton told Sefton in the strictest confidence that it is of 
vital importance to gain Brougham's consent to Scarlett 

* Mr. Lambton. t Mr. Lambton. 



i822.] KNOWSLEY REVISITED. 399 

being Chancellor, and for Brougham to take the office 
of Atty. Genl. ! . . . You may suppose the anxiety of 
the Earl's mind till he found me for the purpose of 
unburthening himself of this confidential communica- 
tion ; and having done so, we indulged ourselves in a 
duet that might have been heard in the remotest 
corner of the house. Is it not perfectly incredible? 
Lambton was in constant communication with Grey 
whilst here, and (very judiciously !) shewed Sefton 
some of his dispatches on this subject. . . ." 



"Croxteth, 15th. 

". . . We all dined at Knowsley last night. The 
new dining-room is opened: it is 53 feet by 37, and 
such a height that it destroys the effect of all the other 
apartments. . . . You enter it from a passage by two 
great Gothic church-like doors the whole height of 
the room. This entrance is in itself fatal to the effect. 
Ly. Derby (like herself), when I objected to the 
immensity of the doors, said: 'You've heard Genl. 
Grosvenor's remark upon them have you not? He 
asked in his grave, pompous manner — " Pray are those 
great doors to be opened for every pat of butter that 
comes into the room?'" At the opposite end of the 
room is an immense Gothic window, and the rest of 
the light is given by a sky-light mountains high. 
There are two fireplaces ; and the day we dined there, 
there were 36 wax candles over the table, 14 on it, 
and ten great lamps on tall pedestals about the room ; 
and yet those at the bottom of the table said it was 
quite petrifying in that neighbourhood, and the report 
here is that they have since been obliged to abandon 
it entirely from the cold. . . . My lord and my lady 
were all kindness to me, but only think of their neither 
knowing nor caring about Spain or France, nor 
whether war or peace between these two nations was 
at all in agitation ! 

"... I must say I never saw man or woman live 
more happily with nine grown up children. It is my 
lord [Derby] who is the great moving principle. . . 
What a contrast to that poor victim of temper who 
left us last week ! [Mr. Lambton]." 



400 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XV. 



" Croxteth, 23rd. 

". . . Brougham arrived here on Saturday, on his 
way — or rather out of his way — to his nearest and 
dearest. ... Of domestic matters, I think his principal 
article is that Mrs. Taylor's niece, Ly. Londonderry,* 
has transferred her affections from her lord to other 
objects : in the first instance to young Bloomfield, 
Sir Benjamin's son ; and since, to a person of some- 
what higher rank, viz., the Emperor of Russia, and 
that she is now following the latter lover to Peters- 
burgh. Lady Holland is the author of these state- 
ments, and vouches for the truth of them. 

^'Apropos to Lady Holland, in addition to all her 
former insults upon the town, she has set up a huge 
cat, which is never permitted to be out of her sight, 
and to whose vagaries she demands unqualified sub- 
mission from all her visitors. Rogers, it seems, has 
already sustained considerable injury in a personal 
affair with this animal. Brougham only keeps him or 
her at arm's length by snuff, and Luttrell has sent in a 
formal resignation of all further visits till this odious 
new favorite is dismissed from the Cabinet. . . . But 
think of my having so long forgot to mention that 
Brougham says many of the best informed people in 
London, such as Dog Dent and others, are perfectly 
convinced of the truth of the report that dear Prinney 
is really to marry Ly. Elizabeth Conyngham ; on 
which event the Earl here humorously observes that 
the least the King can do for the Queen's family is to 
make Denisonf 'Great Infant of England.' " 

* Frances Anne, only daughter and heiress of Sir Harry Vane- 
Tempest of Wynyard, Bart. 

t Lord Albert Denison Conyngham, 3rd son of Elizabeth Denison, 
1st Marchioness of Conyngham. He was born in 1805, and was 
supposed to be the son of the Prince of Wales (George IV.). 



( 40I ) 



CHAPTER XVI. 

1823-1824. 

Miss Maria Copley * to Mr, Crcevey. 

" Sprotbrough, January 12th. 

". . . We have had a great deal of very agreeable 
society, chiefly composed of the old ingredients of 
Grevilles, Levesons, Granvilles, Wortleys, Bentincks, 
&c. ; but they are now all flown — the Grevilles to 
Welbeck, Ld. F. Leveson to Madrid, the Granvilles 
to :other battues. . . . Lord F. Leveson's t going to 
Madrid has surprised everybody — me among others 
who had seen them together for a length of time. 
People are inclined to think it a proof of perfect 
indifl'erence on both sides, but at least certainly on 
his. The fact is that having, like few other young 
men, a great aversion to being idle, he applied to 
Canning for employment ; who, when this oppor- 
tunity occurred, off'ered it to him, and as it is a 
remarkably interesting expedition, Harriet % wd. not 
allow him to refuse it. He will be absent only six 
weeks. 

'* Lord F. Conyngham's § appointment gives great 
disgust, and I don't wonder at it. Lord Alvanley 
calls him Canjiingh^m. The King is quite delighted 
with his Secretary of State, and was seen the other 
day at the Pavilion walking about with his arm 
round Canning's neck. 

* Married Lord Howick (afterwards 3rd Earl Grey) in 1832. 
t Second son of ist Duke of Sutherland, created Earl of Ellesmere 
in 1833, married in 1822 Harriet, daughter of Charles Greville, Esq. 
X Lady Francis Leveson. 
§ Succeeded in 1824 as 2nd Marquess Conyngham. 



402 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

" Two of your friend Lady Oxford's daughters are 
going to be married — Ly. Charlotte to a Mr. Bacon 
and Lady Fanny to a Mr. Cuthbert. The last is not 
so certain as the first, as somebody is to be asked for 
a consent, which I think it probable that most fathers, 
mothers and guardians would refuse. It must be a 
bad speculation to take a wife out of that school. 
Mr. Warrender * is going to marry Lady Julia Mait- 
land at last, and Sir George is to be very magnificent. 
. . . Your friend. Lady Glengall, is in London, giving 
ecarte parties every night to the great detriment of 
society in general, and annoyance of the j'oung ladies 
in particular. If things should go on en empirant this 
spring, I prophesy a meeting among that much 
injured race. . . . The Beau f has been staying at the 
Pavilion : he is in the progress of telling charming 
stories of the Congress. 1 would give my^ears to 
hear them. He is very much recovered, but looks 
older and thinner from his illness. I hear thro' a 
secret channel that Ly. Granville had a great deal to 
say in Lord Clanwilliam's getting the situation at 
Berlin. Mr. Canning's diplomatic dependents are 
amazed at such a thing having slipped through their 
fingers. It is certainly more disinterested than Lord 
F. C[onyngham]'s, and does him more credit in the 
eyes of the world. . . . Write, and tell me you are not 
bored to death by such a letter from a young lady." 

** Sprotbrougli, Saturday, 1823. 

" Dear Mr. Creevey, 

*'. . . The Taylors are still with us and we 
are within an ace of a schism about politics at least 
three times a day. Though I cordially agree with 
you about the Three Gentlemen of Verona, I cannot 
think your friend Mr. Brougham's speech prudent. 
At this time, when one must sincerely wish peace to 
be preserved in Europe, it has a most inflammatory 
tendency. I will not, however, dare to say a syllable 
about politics to you : a safer line of conduct for me 

* Succeeded his brother as 5th baronet of Lochend. 

t The Duke of Wellington, who, when Castlereagh committed 
suicide in 1822, had been appointed Plenipotentiary at the Congress 
of Verona. 



1823-24.] A YOUNG LADY'S LETTERS. 403 

is to agree with Michael [Taylor]. I am painfully 
striving to inform myself about Spain, and have just 
read Blaquiere's book. Comme il fait de la prose. I 
never read so dull a book made out of so interesting 
a subject. Las Casas' book is the most delicious 
effusion of a sentimental old French tw^addle that 
ever was read ; but as far as it goes appears to be 
very authentic. He paints Bonaparte in the brightest 
colours, and evidently leaves out all spots and dark 
shades, or softens and explains them away, so that 
nothing remains but the most admirable hero de I'oman 
that ever existed. ... I am in horror at the thought 
of the King's dying. In the first place (though I am 
no respecter of his), I think he does as well for us, or 
better than the Duke of York : secondo — we should 
have a horrid radical Parliament chosen : terzo — 
London wd. be spoilt this year. There speaks the young 
lady!" 

Mr. Crcevey to Miss Ord. 

"Feby. 4, 1823. 

". . . Who should arrive at Brooks's last night 
fresh from Paris but Og King of Bashan?* You 
never saw a fellow in such a state of fury against 
Cochon.t He is for a declaration of war this very 
afternoon in his friend Canning's speech. He com- 
plains bitterly that we are none of us up to the true 
mark : that if we would but give Spain a lift now 
before the Russians and Prussians come to be 
quartered in France (which he is perfectly sure is part 
of the present plan) that the Bourbons wd. not be on 
their throne 3 months. . . .'* 

" House of Commons, \ past 3. 

"Just heard the King's Speech, and upon my word 
the part about Spain is much better than I expected. 
I don't see what Brougham is to do with his amend- 
ment after it. The first sentence relating to Spain J 

* The 2nd Lord Kensington, 
t Louis XVI n. 

t " Faithful to the principles which his Majesty has promulgated to 
the world as constituting the rule of his conduct, his Majesty has 



404 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

is a regular spat on the face to the Villains of Verona, 
and the whole certainly more in favor of Spain than 
of France." 

" Feby. 5, Brooks's. 

". . . Well ! I had no difficulty in making Brougham 
prefer the King's speech last night to his own projected 
amendment, and to change his regrets into warm 
admiration. You will see, however, that he by no 
means abandoned his plan of castigation of the Royal 
and Imperial scoundrels of Verona. ... .So faithful 
a picture of villains — portrait after portrait — was 
never produced by any artist before. If anything 
could add to the gratification the Allied Sovereigns 
must have received had they been present, it would 
be from the way in which our otherwise discordant 
fellows lapped up this truly British cordial like 
mother's milk. Peel could scarcely make himself 
heard, yet he went further than the Speech, and gave 
an unequivocal opinion in favor of Spain against 
France ; but Liverpool went still further, and shewed 
clearly that he is in earnest in trying to keep the 
peace — that he thinks there is some little, little chance 
of it ; and further, he clearly thinks that if war is once 
begun, we shall not be able to keep out of it." 

" Brooks's, 14th Feb. 

"I dined here last night much more agreeably, 
tho' not so cheaply, with Thanet, Brougham, Kensing- 
ton, &c., &:c. Every day's experience impresses me 
more strongly with the great superiority of Thanet 
over eveiy politician that I see. He is gone to Paris 
this morning to add, as every one expects, ;^io,ooo 
more to his already great losses at play. And yet he 
seems perfectly convinced of his almost approaching 
beggary under all the overpowering difficulties in 
which land is now involved ! 

" Yesterday morning Lord Sefton drove me to the 
Freemason's Tavern, the great room of which is fitted 
up as a court for the tribunal which sits in judgment 

declined being a party to any proceedings at Verona which could be 
deemed an interference in the internal concerns of Spain on the part 
of foreign powers." 



1823-24.] CRITICISM UPON CANNING. 405 

upon Lord Portsmouth's sanity or insanity. Cer- 
tainly, never was a more disgraceful thing than the 
Chancellor's conduct on this occasion — to put the 
property of the family to the expense of ;^40,ooo, 
which it is said it will undoubtedly cost, rather than 
decide this point himself, which every one who has 
seen Lord Portsmouth has long since decided.* . . . 

" The publick functionaries in Ireland are coming 
to close quarters. Wellesley has dismissed at a 
moment's warning Sir Charles Vernon, the Chamber- 
lain, and two others — men who had held their situations 
about the Court for years. Their offence was dining 
at a Beefsteak Club last week, where Lord Chancellor 
Manners was likewise, and drinking as a toast : — 
' Success to the export trade of Ireland, and may Lord 
Wellesley be the first article exported ! ' f . . . 

"I never saw a fellow look more uncomfortable 
than Canning.t Independent of the difficulty of the 
times, he is surrounded by perfidy quite equal to his 
own. People in office are in loud and undisguised 
hostility to him : it may be heard at all corners of the 
streets. I never saw such a contrast as between the 
manners of ministerial men even to him, and what it 
used to be to Castlereagh. Business begins in earnest 
on: Monday, and I must launch my 'supply* on that 
or some early day, if my nerves are equal to it ; but I 
find them fail me more and more every day." 

"Brooks's, 2ist Feby. 

". . . Well! we got into a fine mess the night 
before last upon our Joe's motion,§ but Canning did 
what he could for us by his ill-timed and unnecessary 
vehemence and violence. His own people already 
pronounce that his irritability must prove injurious 
to him, and the loss of Castlereagh's composure and 
good manners is deplored in a manner nat very 
flattering to his successor." 

* The 3rd Earl of Portsmouth. The enquiry lasted 17 days, and 
the jury pronounced him to be insane. 

t The Marquess Wellesley was Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland at the 
time. 

X Who was now leader of the House of Commons. 

§ Joseph Hume. 



406 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

" 25th. 

". . . Yesterday I spent a very amusing hour with 
Sefton at the Opera House, seeing the maitre de ballet 
manceuvre about $0 figurantes for the approaching new 
ballet oi Alfred. . . . This done, we went to our ozvit 
playhouse, where we saw ist a pas de trois between 
Wilson, Hobhouse and Canning, and then 2. pas dedeiix 
between Brougham and Canning. . . . After the House 
I dined at Sefton's en famille, and to-day I would have 
you to know I dine with the Hereditary Earl Marshal 
of England, Premier Duke, &c., alias Barney, alias 
Scroope I " 

"4th March. 

". . . I dined on Saturday at Lord King's : the 
party — Duke and Duchess of Somerset ; Heber the 
Tory and classical member for Oxford ; George 
Phillips the patriotic and fasionable savant from 
Manchester; Sir — Johnson,* a powdered beau of the 
first order and ci-devant Indian judge ; Lord Clare, 
Lavallette Bruce, George Fortescue and Bennet. 
Was there ever such a hash ? However, the day, 
contrary to my expectation, was very well. I got on 
extreemly well with Mrs. Somerset.f You know she 
is the false devil who robbed her brother Archie of 
his birthright." 



Miss Mafia Copley to Mr. Creevey. 

" Sprotbrough, March 6th, 1823. 

" Our friend the Beau does not think Ferdinand's 
life worth a long purchase after the French army enter 
Spain. He says that they — the French — will meet 
with no more resistance in marching to Madrid than 
he does in going to the Ordnance Office. Two inches 
of cold steel will do his business very shortly. . . . 
Lord Francis Leveson (at Madrid) is of the same 

* Sir John Johnson, Superintendent- General and Inspector- 
General of Indian affairs in British North America. 

The first wife of the iith Duke of Somerset, Lady Charlotte 
Douglas-Hamilton, daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton. 



1833-24.] A YOUNG LADY'S LETTERS. 407 

opinion as to Ferdinand's prospect of a long reign. . . . 
I hope we shall not interfere, as it must increase both 
our debt and our difficulties. . . , Pray what do they 
think at Michael's * of O'Meara ? I was malicious 
enough to talk of nothing but the Quarterly Reviczv 
last time that I saw Mrs. Taylor, notwithstanciing that 
she pertinaciously asserted that she had not read a 
line of it.t She made a determination not to believe 
one word of it till she saw those notes at Murraj^'s, 
with a sight of which I assured her she might be 
gratified immediately. ... I am curious to see 
O'Meara's defence. How he is to exculpate himself 
from the ma7ty charges of double dealing baffles my 
poor imagination. He must be a sad, shuffling, dirty 
wretch. 

"A still more difficult riddle for me to solve is 
your friend Mr. Brougham. Why does he make such 
love to Canning? — Why is he in none of your 
divisions? — Why is he in astonishment at the small 
demand of Ministers ? — Is it catalepsy ? All your 
good humour and civility make the debates very 
fiat. . . . Allow me to set you right upon a point 
which nearly concerns the honour of my family. 
Heaven forbid that Miss Lemon should have a 
daughter. Her sister married a Sir Something 
Davy.l Another time be more cautious of taking 
away the credit of an unfortunate damsel by a stroke 
of your pen — particularly in a letter to her cousin ! " 



Mr. Crcevcy to Miss Ord. 

"March nth. 

" I send you herewith Brougham's dispatch which 
I received j^esterday. I had charity enough for him 
not to shew it to any one but Sefton, and he quite 
agrees with me that he is mad. His lunacy, you may 

* Michael Angelo Taylor's. 

t Croker's article on O'Meara's book appeared in the Quarterly in 
February, 1823. At Mrs. Taylor's Whig and Radical salon O'Meara's 
narrative had been accepted as gospel, and IMinisters were roundly 
execrated for the supposed oppressive treatment of their captive. 

X Sir John Davie, 8th baronet of Greedy, Devon. 

2 F 



408 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

plainly see, is to be in power. He cannot endure for 
a moment anything or any man he thinks can by 
possibility obstruct his march. He has himself entirely 
spiked his guns in the House of Commons; he has 
put it at Canning's feet, and then he is raving in the 
country that Hume should presume to open his mouth 
without his (Brougham's) permission." 

There is little apparent madness in Brougham's 
letter referred to above. On the contrary, it seems 
brimful of common sense, chiefly referring to a prO' 
jected attack on the Church of England by Joseph 
Hume, but it was not militant enough for Creevey. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [enclosed in 

abovel. 

" Durham, Saturday. 

". . . As to Joseph, I hope it may do good. I 
know that things may with safety be brought on by 
him, which in any other man's hands wd. do harm. 
Therefore I always thought the attack on the Church 
was safer in his hands than in any others. But I fear he 
may throw awa}'' a great case, and {except your testimony) 
I see nothing in the other night's debate to change 
this opinion. Don't let us deceive ourselves. There 
are millions — and among them very powerful and very 
respectable people — who will go a certain way with 
us, but will be quite staggered by our going pell-mell 
at it. The people of this country are not prepared to 
give up the Church. For one — I am certainly not ; 
and my reason is this. There is a vast mass of religion 
in the country, shaped in various forms and burn- 
ing with various degrees of heat — from regular luke- 
warmness to Methodism. Some Church establishment 
this feeling must have ; and I am quite clear that a much- 
reformed Ch. of Engd. is the safest form in which 
such an establishment can exist. It is a quiet and 
somewhat lazy Church : certainly not a persecuting 
one. Clip its wings of temporal power (which it 
unceasingly uses in behalf of a political slavery) * and 

* I.e. against Reform. 



1823-24.] TWO VERY DIFFERENT DUKES. 409 

purify its more glaring abuses, and you are far better 
off than with a fanatical Church and Dominion of 
Saints, like that of the 17th century; or no Church at 
all and a Dominion of Sects, like that of America. . . . 
The Irish case is a great and an extreme one, and by 
keeping it strictly on its own grounds and abstaining 
from any topics common to both Churches, a body blow 
may be given. But if any means are afforded to the 
Ch. and its friends here of making common cause with 
the Irish fellows, I fear you convert a most powerful 
case into an ordinary one, which must fall. ... 1 write 
this in court, and in some haste. Let me hear whether 
I am still in the wrong." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"nth March. 

^^1 "I never told you that I caught the Beau one day 
last week just mounting his horse, so I went up and 
stopt him, and had a very hearty hand-shaking. ... I 
never saw a man's looks so altered. He is a perfect 
shadow, and as old looking as the ark. . . . There must 
have been an amusing scene between him and Slice * 
this day week in Ly. Salisbury's box at the Opera. 
Slice made a long oration to him against French 
aggression upon Spain, and ended with requiring to 
know Wellington's sentiments upon the probable 
result. The Beau contented himself by replying — ' It 
won't succeed.' Slice would not be put off this way, 
and made a second harangue, ending with the same 
demand of an official opinion ; but our Beau again wd. 
not advance further than — ' It won't succeed." 

" 17th. 
". . . Thanet has won .^40,000 in one night at Paris. 
He broke the bank at the Salon twice : the question is 
— will he bring any of this money home with him ? I 
take it for granted not'' 

"April 1 8th. 

" You never saw such confusion and consternation 
as was produced in the Ministerial row by Burdett's 
speech [on Catholic emancipation]. ... In the midst 

* H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. 



4IO " THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

of the debate arose that alarming episode between 
Brougham and Canning. . . . Brougham was laying 
about him upon Canning's 'truckling' to Eldon for 
his late admission into the Cabinet,* when the latter 
sprung up in the greatest fury saying — 'That is 
FALSE ! ' Upon this we had the devil to pay for near 
an hour, and Wilson had at last the credit of settling 
it by a speech of very great merit, and to the satis- 
faction of all parties. Brougham, I think, was wrong 
to begin with ; he was speaking under the impression 
produced upon him by Canning's blackguard observa- 
tion to Folkestone the night before, viz. that ' if he had 
truckled to the Bourbons, as stated by Folkestone, at 
all events he would never truckle to him.'' Brougham 
was going on like a madman, but Canning was much 
worse in his rage, and in his violation of the rules 
of the House. . . . The House generally was decidedly 
against Canning, as it had been the night before upon 
his passion and low-lived tirade against Folkestone, 
saying ' he spoke with all the contortions of the Sibyl 
without her inspiration.' . . . In short. Canning's temper 
is playing the devil with him, as I always felt sure it 
would." 

"April 2 1 St. 
" On Saturday I dined at Harry Martin's, with the 
Admiral and his wife, Lord Erskine, old Alexander the 
Master in Chancery, &c., &c. Poor Erskine at last 
looks very old and forlorn, tho' his etherial spark is 
by no means extinct. Somebody was talking about 
old Cochon's t powers of eating, upon which Erskine 
said he wished 'the damned scoundrel wd. eat his 
words.' . . . He talks for both Spaniards and Greeks 
with all the enthusiasm of youth. ' 

" 28th. 

". . . Ward (John William) J met me in the street 
yesterday, and begged me, after all his estrangement 
from me, to turn about with him, as he wished much 
to have some talk; and so, as I declined, he turned 

* Implying that Canning, who had always advocated emancipation 
of the Catholics, had consented, as the price of his admission, not t<f 
press the question. 

t Louis XVIII. 

X Created Earl of Dudley in 1837. 



1823-24.] THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 411 

about himself, putting his arm thro' mine ; and his dis- 
course was that the Government must be strangled — 
that the Opposition, with the least management in the 
world, must destroy them — that Peel was lower and 
lower every day, quite incompetent, and that Canning, 
with all his talents and superiority, had no support — 
that Peel had all the Tories, and Canning no one of 
any party with him. A pleasant statement this to be 
made by a man who calls Canning his master, or at 
least who has called him so. . . . Sefton and I were 
walking in the streets two days ago, when we saw my 
Lady Holland's carriage standing at a shop door; so 
Sefton said — 'Now's your time! go and get it over.' 
So I did : I put my head into the carriage as if nothing 
had happened — shook hands and cracked my jokes as 
usual. ... So when I left her she squeezed Sefton's 
hand with the greatest tenderness and said — * Nothing 
could be better done ! ' . . . 

"Og* told me a story of the Duke of Buckingham 
which Canning had told him in confidence, and which 
ought to be preserved to perpetuate the base, intrigu- 
ing spirit of this genuine noble Grenville. . . . Upon 
Castlereagh's death this said Duke, altho' Canning and 
he had never been on very good terms, wrote the most 
nauseous complimentary letter to Canning, taking for 
granted the Government would never let so distin- 
guished a statesman leave the country,! and urging 
him by all he owed to his country to accept the offer 
when made to him. Canning shewed this letter to 
Kensington at the time, convulsed with laughter at its 
style and mean contents. Not content with this, the 
Duke wrote another letter to Lord Morley, still more 
extravagant in Canning's praises, well knowing the 
latter was sure to see the letter, hoping Canning would 
not run any risque of serving his country by claims 
made for any of his friends, for that, when once 
Minister, all would be at his feet. 

"Well — upon Canning's first interview with Lord 
Liverpool after his acceptance of office, the latter said 
— 'What is to become of India?' to which Canning 
replied it was an appointment to which he was quite 

* Lord Kensington. 

t Canning had been appointed Governor General of India. 



412 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

indifferent, the only object he had at heart being an 
arrangement for putting Huskisson in a high and 
responsible official situation. Upon which Liverpool 
said he knew the Speaker * was desirous of going to 
India, and if Canning would see and sound the 
Directors — if they were agreeable to appoint him 
Governor General, then Wynne t might be placed in 
the chair and Huskisson have the Board of Controul. 
Canning accordingly saw the Directors, but tho' they 
were very desirous of Wynne being removed from the 
Board of Controul, as being perfectly inefficient, still 
they had the greatest possible objections to the Speaker 
as Governor General. However, Huskisson's appoint- 
ment was so very agreeable to them, that at a second 
conference they struck. Wynne, who hitherto had 
shown no reluctance to this arrangement, being now 
called upon for its execution, declared his fixed deter- 
mination not to give up the Board of Controul unless 
the Duke of Buckingham had that office, or was one of 
the Secretaries of State, and of course in the Cabinet. 
This claim being universally scouted, all was at an 
end." 

"May 3, 1823. 

"... I dined at Hughes' J on Thursday — 17 or 18 
people — crowded and dull as be damned. But then 
the footmen had such cloaths — such rich laced waist- 
coats — such beautiful new silk stockings and silver 
buckles! . . . My Lord Lansdowne was affable be- 
yond measure yesterday. He has had a special 
messenger from Marshal Soult, offering him in the 
first instance, and before any one else, his Murillos, 
taken by him when in Spain, and only asking as the 
price of them one hundred thousand pounds! My 
lord said Soult had shown them to him when he 
was last in Paris, and certainly they were the finest 
things ever seen — great altar-pieces, &c. ... I have 
been to look at the Queen's trial by Hayter, and 
never was 1 more disappointed — a regular daub — and 
yet I find myself singular in this opinion so far." 

* Charles Manners Sutton, created Viscount Canterbury in 1835, 
died in 1845. 

t The Right Hon. C. W. Williams Wynn. 

X Mr. Hughes of Kinmel, afterwards created Lord Dinorben. 



I823-24-] SOCIAL SCHEMING. 413 

"■ 6th. 

"I really had a most agreeable dinner at Sam 
Whitbread's brewery on Saturday. We sat down 22, 
I think, Sam and William both behaved as well as 
could be. . . . The entertainment of the day to me 
was going over the brewery after dinner by gas- 
light. A stable brilliantly illuminated, containing 
ninety horses worth 50 or 60 guineas apiece upon an 
average, is a sight to be seen nowhere but in this 
'tight little island.' The beauty and amiability of 
the horses was quite affecting; such as were lying 
down we favored with sitting upon — four or five of 
us upon a horse. . . ." 

" May 9th. 

". . . Yesterday I dined at Og's* — his first great 
state dinner and new French cook, just imported; our 
company being Jockey of Norfolk,! Althorpe, Bennet, 
Lambton, Ferguson, Titchfield, my lady [Kensing- 
ton], two daughters and two sons, and 1 assure you 
we had a most jolly day of it. . . . At night, Bennet 
and I went to Lady Derby's, and certainly an uglier 
set of old harridans I never beheld in all my life. . . . 
Humbug Leopold f and Bore Slice § were there. 
Lady Sefton and I sat together to quiz the whole set, 
of which none were ever more worthy. To-day I 
dined at Lord King's, and there is the devil to do 
about Lady Jersey wanting to get Brougham not 
to dine there, but to dine with her to meet Prince 
d'Arenberg, who wants particularly to meet Brougham. 
The latter tells Lady Jersey that as Mrs. Brougham 
dines at Ld. King's, he can't let her go there alone ; 
so 'Sister Sally' writes to Mrs. Brougham to beg 
as a particular favor that she will dine at Lady King's 
without Brougham. Mrs. B. replies upon Sally, in a 
dispatch of four sides of paper, that she can't presume 
to do so — that she knows full well she never is asked 

* Lord Kensington's. 

t Referring to the 12th Duke under the nickname usually given to 
the nth Duke. 

X Chosen King of the Belgians in 183 1. 
§ H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. 



414 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

anywhere but on account of Mr. Brougham, and that 
she can't think of incurring the odium of going any- 
where without him. ..." 

"loth May. 

". . . As I walked up to Lord King's door yester- 
day, up drove Brougham's carriage, and in it was 
Mrs. Brougham alone. So I handed her out, dressed 
like an interesting villager, all in white, with a wreath 
of roses round her temples, and she made Brougham's 
apologies to Lady King for unavoidable absentee on 
account of business; so it was all very well, and I 
complimented her upon her powers of face. I sat 
next to her at dinner, and her languishing was really 
beyond all bearing." 

*' May 12. 

". . . Og has been down to Canning at Gloucester 
Lodge. . . . The object of his visit was to tender his 
son's resignation of his seat in Parliament, the said 
son having voted with Burdett on Tuesday, altho' his 
seat was given him by Canning. The latter said he 
had observed Edwardes go out in the division ; but 
behaved very handsomely indeed about it — said he 
was a young one and might think differently in 
future, and, in short, desired he might have his head 
and do as he liked for some time longer. But Og 
observed there was no chance of his mending, for 
that his mother was in his confidence, and he had 
entrusted to her his decided opinion against the 
Government." 

" June 3rd. 

". . . My visit to Stoke Farm has been perfect. . . . 
As a place, it has no other merit than that of having 
Windsor Castle full in front of it, distant 3 miles. 
It is on a dead flat, if not in a hollow. It was Sefton's 
first residence 30 years ago, during which period he 
told me he had spent ;^40,ooo on it, and he adds it 
may now be worth from £6,000 to ;^io,ooo. . , ." 

" 24th. 

". . , On Monday, after dining at Sefton's, I went 
to Lady Jersey's. Her parties are not nearly so 
numerous as they used to be, and of course they are 



1823-24.] TITTLE-TATTLE. 415 

SO much the worse, because they were never too 
crowded. . . . While I was talking to Lj-. Jersej^ 
Humbug Leopold interrupted us, so she sent me a 
message by her * brother Brougham ' to come to her 
next Monday, and stay and be one of the supper 
click, which always terminates these evenings, . . . 
I suppose you know Ly. Elizabeth Conyngham's 
marriage with Lord Burford * is off. He became so 
unmannerly and cross that the lady sent him a letter 
of dismissal last Saturday. . . . Here is the town in 
a mutiny at the King giving Lord Salisbury's blue 
ribbon to Lord Bath, quite unknown to any of the 
Ministers. / am delighted, because Lord Bath is 
the man who said that if he had seen Bergami and 
the late Queen in bed together it would not alter his 
vote against the Bill that was to crush her." 

"July 18, 1823. 

"... I had really a charming day at Roehampton 
yesterday. It is quite a superb villa or house, with 
'500 acres of beautiful ground about it, and all Rich- 
mond Park appearing to belong to it. What a con- 
trast between Lady Duncannon and her sister Lady 
jersey ! The quietness and retiredness of the former. 
She seems, however, very merry and very happy with 
her nine white-haired children, some of them very 
pretty. . . ." 

" Stoke Farm [Lord Sefton's], 25th July. 

". . . My life here is a most agreeable one. I am 
much the earliest riser in the House, and have above 
two hours to dispose of before breakfast, which is at 
eleven o'clock or even later. Then I live with myself 
again till about 3, when the ladies and I ride for 3 
hours or so. . . . We dine at \ past seven, and the 
critics would say not badly. We drink in great 
moderation — walk out, all of us, before tea, and then 
crack jokes and fiddle till about ^ past 12 or i. . . . If 
you want any London scandal, there is a shop at 
present which is said to surpass what Devonshire 
House ever was. The receiving house is [erased'] — 
the principal ladies Mrs. F L , young Duchess 

* Aftenvards 9th Duke of St. Albans. 



4l6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

of R , Lady E V , Lady C P— 

— the men, young Lister, Geo. Anson, Francis 
Russell, &c., &c." 

"nth Feb., 1824. 

". . . I dined yesterday at Vesuvius Kinnaird's,* 
and such a mixture was never before got together — 
Sir Francis Burdett and Sir Charles Flint, Lavelette 
Bruce, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset,! Mr. Creevey and 
Sir George Warrender — and, what is more, the last 
two gentlemen sat next to each other to the great 
amusement of Ellice.J ... I cracked my jokes with 
such success that old Rat Warrender was compelled 
to ask me to drink wine with him, tho' he was in- 
fernally annoyed all the time, and made a most pre- 
cipitate retreat after dinner. But my delight was 
Lord Fitzroy Somerset. ... I never was more pleased 
with any one than I was with him during our conver- 
sation, which was of some length. . . ." 

" March I. 

". . . On Saturday I dined at Hume's, where I 
had the good fortune to sit between Mina and one of 
the Greek deputies. . . . Mina § is my delight. Hob- 
house wanted to flatter him at the expense of Morillo, 
Abisbal and Ballisteros, but Mina would not touch it. 
He spoke in high terms of the talents and courage of 
Morillo, and of the infinite difficulties all Spaniards 
were surrounded with. If ever I saw an honest man, 
he is one ; and then he is so hearty and likeable. . . . 
Yesterday I made my long owing visit at Holland 
House, and found my lord and my lady alone — she 
with a bad cold, and he, of course, nursing her. My 
visit seemed to answer, and I am to dine and stay all 
night there on Sunday. Would you believe it ? Lady 
H. wd. not let Holland dine with Lord Lansdowne 

* Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, a banker in Westminster. 

t Created Lord Raglan in 1852. 

i Sir George, originally a Whig, had become a supporter of the 
Government, and had quarrelled with Creevey about a taunting 
speech he (Creevey) had made in the House on the subject of " ratting.^' 

§ General Espoz y Mina, a distinguished Spanish soldier, com- 
manded a corps under Wellington in the Peninsular war. 




JOSEPH HUME. 



\To face p. 416. 



1823-24.] AT CROCKFORD'S. 417 

last week — a dinner made purposely for Mina, merely 
because she thought it might not please the King if he 
heard of it ! Nor will she let Mina or any Spaniard 
approach Holland House for the same reason. Was 
there ever such a ?" 

" April 2. 

". . . In talking with Lady Derby about young 
Gill Heathcote's duel, she put me in mind that young 
Gill and Mrs. Johnson are cousins — their two grand- 
mothers, Ly. Louisa Manners and Lady Jane Hally- 
day, having been sisters. So, as the Countess justly 
observed, after Gill had received Lord Brudenel's 
shot for maltreating his sister, he ought to have said 
— * Now, my lord, I must beg you to receive my shot 
for your conduct to my cousin ! ' Damned fair, I think. 
... At night I am sorry to say I went with Lord 
Sefton into that famous, or rather infamous, salon in 
St. James's Street, where all the world at present 
assembles. It far surpasses the salon at Paris in 
splendor, tho' nothing like so large nor so agreeable. 
To me it appears inevitable that all the young ones 
must be ruined there. I found Sir Colin Campbell at 
the hazard table, young Lord William Lennox, Lord 
Bury and various others whom I knew — all in the 
face of day — no concealment, but in the great and 
principal apartment of the house. . . . On Sunday, 
Sefton and I go to hear Irving,* and I am engaged to 
dine with him, altho' Sussex has since asked me to 
dine with him to meet Mina." 

" May 12. 
"... A piece of news in the fashionable world 
which has been referred to in the papers is the 

separation of Henry B from his wife. She has 

long been known to be a ' neat un,' but her vagaries at 
Paris were so undisguised that some friend wrote and 
advertised her husband of it here, and he, to justify 
himself before proceeding to extremities, took to 
breaking open her boxes in pursuit of evidence 
against her. In one of these he is said to have found 
20 locks of hair, with a label on each containing the 
name of the lover to whom it belonged, such as * dear 

* Edward Irving, the famous Scottish preacher. 



41 8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

John Warrender's.' So having collected his trophies 
of this kind, with letters equally instructive, he sallied 
forth to meet her return, and Rochester was the place 
they came together. Here, upon her giving her 
solemn word of honor that all the children but one 
were his, he banished her and the one from his sight 
for ever, and has taken all the other children from her. 
She is a Yankee by birth and origin : her husband is 
a notorious gambler, for whom nobody seems to care 
a damn. 

"Another slip is Mrs. Alderman C with our 

tragedian, Kean. . . . He has been at his letters too, 
one of which to the lady was intercepted by the alder- 
man, and begun — 'You dear imprudent little .' 

Can anything be more soft or romantic? . . . 

" I don't know whether you noticed that Edward 
Stanley * made a regular attack upon Hume, defended 
the Church, and eventually voted against Hume and 
our people, as did his father.! You may well suppose 
this heresy was mightily extolled by the enemy. . . . 
Lord Derby has been made really ill by it." 

" 4th May. 

"... I told you of my dinner with King Tom,| 
and of my satisfaction with the Crown Prince.§ The 
latter is really like a young Newfoundland pupp}'^ 
— quite as strong, intelligent and good-natured. . . . 
At night. Coke was to take me to the honble. House ; 
but . . . we first looked in at Brooks's, where we 
found that the whole concern had been knocked up by 
the Balloon 1 So many members had run out to see it 
that Alderman Kit Smith, a furious enemy of the 
Saints, call'd for the House to be counted. . . . Not 
forty had remained in it, so all was over! Sefton's 
delight in the mischief was unbounded. Brougham 
had been in bed most of the day on purpose, and had 
ordered himself to be called at 5 so as to be quite fresh 
for his reply. Wilberforce had given all his serious 

* Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby. 

t Lord Stanley, afterwards 13th Earl of Derby. The Stanleys 
hitherto had been consistent Whigs. 

X Mr. Coke of Holkham, created Earl of Leicester in 1 837. 
§ The present Earl of Leicester, born in 1822. 



1823-24.] ROYAL ASCOT. 419 

acquaintance notice that he meant to take leave of 
publick life in his speech on this occasion,* so that 
every hole and corner was crammed with saints and 
missionaries in expectation of this great event; when, 
lo and behold ! this wicked aeronaut proved more 
attractive to the giddy Council of the Nation." 

" June 18, Stoke Farm. 

". . . Our course for the last three days has been 
to breakfast punctuallv at 10, to start for Ascot about 
1 1, not to be home again before 6, and after dinner to 
be engaged in gambles of one kind or another with 
cards till one or later. . . . Our old acquaintance 
Prinney was at the races each day, and tho in health 
he appeared perfect, he has all the appearance of a 
slang leg — a plain brown hat, black cravat, scratch 
wig, and his hat cocked over one eye. There he 
sat, in one corner of his stand. Lady Conyngham 
rather behind him, hardly visible but by her feathers. 
He had the same limited set of 7/^5 about him each 
day, and arrived and departed in private. I must say 
he cut the lowest figure ; and the real noblesse — Whig 
and Tory — were with his brother York." 

"June 19. 

"... I wish I could sufficiently condense the facts 
of an affair which now forms the pre-eminent subject 
of conversation in the beau monde. The parties are 

P G and Lady G . The latter has been 

parted some time from her husband, and P has 

been the lover of the lady. It seems that Mrs. Peter 
Free, the sister of Lady G , has long been press- 
ing her to discard P as quite unworthy of her, 

and in the end she succeeded ; so that one fine 
day our heroine sets forth in all the consciousness 
of virtuous triumph to carry to her sister, not only 
the vicious correspondence which had passed be- 
tween her and her lover, but a copy of the letter 

which she had written and sent to P , closing 

all intercourse with him for ever. By some secret 

* The occasion was an adjourned debate on Brougham's motion 
for an enquiry' into the trial by court-martial of an English missionary 
in Demerara. 



420 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

management of the Devil, no doubt, the lady was 
tempted by him in the shape of a gown to go into 
a shop ; and, having deposited and left upon the 
counter her ridicule [reticule], the aforesaid Enemy of 
man and womankind had the address to have it con- 
veyed to the house of Sir B , who opened and 

examined its contents. You have of course antici- 
pated that the fatal correspondence was enclosed in 
it, which he has been kind enough to shew to a pretty 
numerous circle of his friends. Tom Buncombe tells 
me he has seen every letter. The parties correspond 
under the imposing signatures of Jupiter and Juno. 

. . . The principal novelty to Sir B is a child 

which the lady has born to P , which is receiving 

its nourishment and education in the New Road. It 

is the conduct of P to this interesting infant 

which constitutes the lady's grounds for abandoning 
him for ever. It seems the child had lately suffered 
severely in cutting a tooth — an event which agitated 

its mother extreamly, but which P' is alleged to 

have witnessed with the most stoical indifference ; so 
much so, that she is very naturally led to contrast his 
conduct with that of his friend De Ros,* who actually 
wept over the child ; and, what is more, has promised 
to provide for it by his will. It is this last anecdote 
which peculiarly delights the town, De Ros being 
one of the cleverest and most hardened villains in 
it " 

" June 22nd. 

". . . We are all full of a battle that is to take place 
in the H. of Lords between the Duke of York and our 
Scroop.t Lord Holland has brought in a bill to 
enable Scroop, tho' a Catholic, to officiate in future as 
Earl Marshal. It was read a 2nd time on Saturday, 
tho' the Duke of York and old Eldon were in the 
minority; but since then the D. of York has become 
perfectly furious, and has written to every peer he 
knows, calling upon him to come and protect the 
Crown against the insidious Scroop. We had a jolly 
day enough at Whitehall on Saturday, altho' I never 

* The 19th Baron de Ros. _ 

t The 1 2th Duke of Norfolk. 



1 823-24-] NEWMARKET. 42 1 

see Sydney Smith without thinking him too much of 
a buffoon." 

"25th June. 

" I dined last night at Lord Carnarvon's, where by 
comparison for amusement Bedlam * decidedly kept 
the lead, altho' our company were no other than the 
Dukes of Sussex and Leinster, Marquis Downshire, 
Earls Grey, Jersey, Darnley, Cowper and Rosslyn, 
Lords King, Ellenborough and John Russell, and last 
and least Messrs. Brougham and Creevey. Carnarvon 
never uttered, and little Sussex very justly whispered 
to me as we came away that 'it had been a melancholy 
day.' . . . Grey, Rosslyn, Cowper and Jersey went full 
fig from Carnarvon's to the Beau's, to meet the King 
who dined there, and Grey says to-day cut him most 
clearly and decidedly. . . ." 

"15 July. 
". . . We had beautiful weather at Newmarket. ... 
Sefton has a capital house, and, according to custom, 
his dinners were admirably arranged. Tavistock, Lord 
Jersey, Punch Greville t and Shelley dined there each 
day, and on Tuesday the Duke of Grafton and the 
Duke of York. I had never seen the latter in this sort 
of way before, and was extreamly entertained. He is 
the very image of the late Lord Petre ; perhaps not 
quite so clever, and certainly not so polite — in short, a 
very civil and apparently most good-tempered idiot, 
without any manners at all. Shelley played the fool 
in patronising him and shewing him off, and Punch 
Greville disgraced himself by hunching him ; but he 
took both in the same good humor, and we all drank 
freely in compliment to the royal guest. . . ." 

" Cantley, nr. Doncaster [Michael Taylor, M.P.'s], Sept. 7th. 

"... I had a most prosperous journey down here. 
There never was such perfection of travelling. I left 
London at ^ past 8 on Friday morning, and, without an 

* He had paid a visit that morning to the new Bedlam, south of 
Westminster Bridge. 

t Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville [1794-1865], Clerk of the 
Council and political diarist. 



422 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

effort, and in a coach loaded with luggage, I was at 
Doncaster by 5 the following morning — a distance of 
1 60 miles! . . . Lady Anson goes to town next week 
to be present at the wedding of her niece, the pretty 
'Aurora' — 'Light of Day' — Miss Digby . . . who is 
going to be married to Lord Ellenborough. ... It 
was Miss Russell who refused Ld. Ellenborough, as 
many others besides are said to have done. Lady 
Anson will have it that he was a very good husband 
to his first wife, but all my impressions are that he is 
a damned fellow." * 

" Cantley [Doncaster Races], 24th Sept. 

", . . George Payne's loss (in bets) turns out to be 
;^2 1,000 and not ;^25,ooo as I had been told when I 
wrote to you on Monday. The ^^4000 saved is better 
than nothing, but the whole thing is damnable. ... If 
one could suppose such a knockdown blow wd. cure 
him, it might turn out to be money well laid out ; but 
I fear that is hopeless. He says he shall keep to 
hunting in future and cut the turf. . . . Lady London- 
derry is the great shew of the balls here in her jewels, 
which are out of all question the finest I ever beheld — 
such immense amethysts and emeralds, &:c. Poor 
Mrs. Carnac, who had a regular haystack of diamonds 
last night, was really nothing by the side of the other, 
tho' in beauty the two ladies are very fairly matched. 
Such a dumpy, rum-shaped and rum-faced article as 
Lady Londonderry one can rarely see. . . ." 

" Lambton, Oct. 20. 

"... I got here on Monday night, the company 
being at dinner, and in the second course. However 
King Jog, hearing I was arrived, left his throne, and 
came out, and took me in with him. I found nearer 
30 than 20 people there, in a very long and lofty 
apartment — the roof highly collegiate, from which hung 
the massive chandeliers — the curtain drapery of dark- 
coloured velvet, profusely fringed with gold, and much 
resembling palls. The company, sitting at a long and 

* This marriage turned out badly, and was dissolved by Act of 
Parliament in 1830. "Aurora" consoled herself by three subsequent 
marriages, and died at Damascus in i88r. 



1823-24.] A VISIT TO LAMBTON. 4-3 

narrowish table, never uttered a single, solitary sound 
for long and long after I was there ; so that it really 
might have been the family vault of the Lambtons, and 
the company the male and female Lambtons who had 
been buried in their best cloaths and in a sitting 
position. Grey and Ly. Elizabeth and Lord Howick 
are here, the Milbanks, the Wiltons and Bob Grosvenor, 
the Cavendishes and Henry and his wife, the Dundas's, 
the Normanbys, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Hedworth William- 
son, young Liddel, Mat Ridley, [illegible] three deep, 
Capt. Berkley and other captains and majors who ride 
at our races, not omitting John Mills. To-day, too, 
my Lord and Lady Londonderry, with Sir Something 
and Lady Something Gresley,* come. The place is 
really a fine one, considering how confined it is by 
coal-pits and smoke, and part of the house quite 
unrivalled, . . . The capricious young tyrant and 
devil t is all graciosity to myself. . . . Mrs. Taylor 
had caught fresh cold before I left Cantley, so that she 
was bled on Sunday morning and fainted away. . . . 
We'll go to our races of to-day. Grey had over and 
over again expressed to me his nervousness about 14 
or 15 of these young men starting for the Cup; the 
course being very slippery and not wide enough for 
such a number. You may judge, then, what cause 
there was for his apprehension when three horses out 
of the number came in without their riders. . . . Lady 
Wilton was standing up as white as a sheet, whilst 
Lady Augusta Milbank fell to the bottom of the coach 
as if she had been shot. Just then, however, the 
good-natured Mat Ridley came galloping up with all 
his might and main to announce that all was safe. . . . 
Milbank is the only one hurt ... he has been bled, 
and is somewhat bruised. . . . Well — all being over, 
we came home and dined pretty punctually at seven — 
and such a dinner I defy any human being to fancy for 
such an occasion. ... I handed Mrs. Dundas out 
(Miss Williamson that was) and a pretty good laugh 
i had out of her at our fare. A round of beef at a side 
table was run at with as much keenness as a banker's 
shop before a stoppage. . . . Was there ever such an 

* Sir Roger and Lady Sophia Gresley. 
t Mr. Lambton. 

2 G 



424 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI. 

instance of derangement, with all this expense in other 
subjects and all his means ? I have just been saying 
to Mills that it is a low Crockford's, and he admits it 
is so ; but he adds that it is certainly better than last 
year, for then there was no beef at the side table, but 
only a sucking-pig! Oh dear, oh dear! it is a neat 
concern : and yet the comfort of these rooms is beyond. 
I have got my book I was in search of, and his civility 
about it makes me almost ashamed of thinking him 
such a stingy, swindling, tyrannical kip as he cer- 
tainly is. 

" Well, as to kips, I think this Lord Wilton * must 
certainly be a decided one. He has the worst counte- 
nance, I think, I ever saw, and he appears a sulky, 
selfish chap : but she seems very happy . . . and there 
is a great charm in all she does. ..." 

" Lambton, 23rd Sept. 
"... A very large division of us have got to quiz 
the whole concern of dinner, so that we really have a 
very jolly time. King Jog himself still sits silent and 
involved in thought. . . . We are really very much 
indebted to these grandees for the damned fools they 
make of themselves. Let me present you with a few 
particulars. ... The night before last, between 12 and 
I, I being in the library where the same cold fowl 
always is with wine and water, Lambton came in out 
of the hazard room, and, finding no water, begun 
belabouring the bell in a way that I thought must 
inevitably have brought the whole concern down. No 
effect was produced, so he sallied forth, evidently 
boiling, and when he returned he said:— 'I don't think 
I shall have to ring so long another time.' This is all 
I know of my own knowledge ; but, says Lady Augusta 
Milbank to me yesterda};^ — *Do you know what 
happened last night?' — *Du tout,' says L — 'Why,' 
says she, ' Mr. Lambton rung the bell for water so 
long, that he went and rung the house bell, when his 
own man came ; and upon saying something in his 
own justification which displeased the Monarch, he 
laid hold of a stick and struck him twice; upon which 

* The 31-d Earl of Wilton, a renowned character in the chase and 
on the turf. 



1823-24.] CAPTAIN FITZCLARENCE'S OPINIONS. 425 

his man told him he could not stand that, and that if 
he did it again he should be obliged to knock him 
down. So the master held his hand and the man gave 
him notice he had done with him. . . . 

" Lady has two maids here — one French and 

the other Italian, the latter of which presides over 
the bonnet department. [Follows a story about 
the Italian.] ... So much for the Italian maid, and 
now for the French one. Mrs. William Lambton 
was going along a passage near her ladyship's room 
between 12 and i this morning, when she found la 
petite on the floor crying bitterly, and upon enquiring 
the cause, she said my lady had beat her so : upon 
which Mrs. W. Lambton sent her maid to her with 
some sal volatile, and just as she was administering it, 

my lord came out and would not let her have 

it, saying she did not deserve it and that she was 
shamming. Now I should be glad to know if there 
was ever ! You never saw any one enjoy these things 
more than Grey, except indeed Lady Wilton. What 
a good thing she will make of it all for little Derby 
and the Countess ! " 

" Lambton, Oct. 24th. 

". . . I think I never saw Grey to greater advantage, 
nor Lady Louisa to so much. As for Lady Elizabeth, 
you never saw a creature so thin or altered in looks. . . . 
The other night Ly. Wilton, she, Hobhouse, Mills and 
I had a jaw about life, youth and age. Ly. Elizth. 
was all for childhood — that she shd, never be so happy 
again, and that if it was not for her friends, she would 
as soon die as live. This may be Grey gloom, but I 
am afraid it must be the behaviour of Lord Lothian." 

"Croxteth, Nov. 10, 1824. 
"... I left FitzClarence at Gosforth and continue 
to like him as well as ever. Ly. Sefton says he is out 
and out the best of the family. . . . Tho' shy, he is not 
without the ingenuousness of the family. He said the 
King was gettmg very old and cross — that the Duchess 
of Clarence was the best and most charming woman in 
the world — that Prince Leopold was a damned humbug, 
and that he [FitzClarence] disliked the Duchess of 
Kent." 



( 426 ) 



CHAPTER XVII. 

1825-1826. 

Domestic politics were in an uneventful stage in the 
fifth year of George IV. Ten years of peace had told 
their tale upon the resources of the United Kingdom ; 
the mineral and textile industries were fully employed, 
and were developing apace ; even farmers had ceased 
to have cause for complaint, if the A rmual Register may 
be taken as well informed, for "agricultural distress 
had disappeared," according to that authority, which 
is scarcely to be reconciled with Lord Sefton's 
account of affairs in Lancashire. Mr. Creevey's 
letters are chiefly filled with descriptions of the various 
country houses which he visited, and of their inmates. 
January finds him north of the Tweed, paying a visit 
to his friend Mr. Ferguson of Raith. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Raith, i8th January, 1825. 
". . . On Sunday I went to Kirk to hear the great 
luminary of this county. Dr. Chalmers,* Professor of 
Huma-nity at Glasgow, and an author upon many 
subjects. He dined here on Saturday, and was treated 
as a regular Jeroboam. His appearance on that day 
was that of a very quiet, good kind of man, with very 
dirty hands and nails ; but on Sunday I never beheld 
a fitter subject for Bedlam than he was. . . . The stuff 
the fellow preached could only be surpassed by his 

* In 1823 he was Professor of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, 
but in 1824 he was transferred to the chair of Theology in Edinburgh. 



1825-26.] TWO SCOTTISH DIVINES. 437 

manner of roaring it out. I expected he would have 
carried the poor Kirkcaldy pulpit clean awa}^ Then 
his Scotch, too ! His sermon was to prove that the 
manner of doing a kindness was more valuable than 
the matter, in support of which I remember two notable 
illustrations. — 'If,' said he, 'you suppose a fa-mily to 
be suddenly veesited with the ca-la-mity of po-verty, 
the tear of a menial — the fallen countenance of a 
domestick — in such cases will afford greater relief to 
the fa-mily than a speceefick sum of money without a 
corresponding sympathy.' A pretty good start, was 
it not — for Scotland, too, of all places in the world ! 
but it was followed by a still higher flight. — 'Why,' 
said he, or rather shouted he, ' Why is it that an ^pple 
presented by an infant to its parent produces greater 
pleesure than an <?pple found by the raud-side ? Why, 
because it is the moral influence of the geft, and not 
the speceefick quality of the ^pple that in this case 
constitutes the pleesure of the parent' Now what 
think you of the tip-top showman of all Scotland ? . . . 
" Having heard that the London artist Irving had 
formerly to do with Kirkcaldy, I asked Fergus and he 
replied — ' Oh yes : he kept an aca-demy for youth at 
Kirkcaldy and was the greatest tyrant of a dominie that 
ever I hard of He had three difl'erent indictments 
found against him for beating his pupils.' — ' Oh ! ' said 
I, 'you joke.' — 'No,' replied Fergus, 'I never made a 
joke in my life. I have seen, with my own eyes, his 
pupils carried home, from his having bruised them so 
unmercifully ; and the truth is, I canno bear to hear 
his name mentioned.' The said Fergus is a man of 
70 years of age at least, and Provost of Kirkcaldy. 
Is it not a capital account of the London charmer to 
whom the fine ladies. Jemmy McKintosh, and Canning, 
and anybody else of any fame, fly in all directions?" 

Lord Thanet's death at this time seriously afl'ected 
Mr. Creevey's position in Parliament as member for 
Appleby, which seat was in the deceased lord's gift. 
By the custom of the unreformed Parliament he felt 
bound to resign the seat if called on to do so by his 
lordship's successor. 



428 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Raith, Feby. 6th, 1825. 

". . . Soyez tranquille as to Parliament — as to my 
having a seat in it, I mean. You have already my 
mind on this subject . . . particularly as to the value 
to one's feelings of not being turned out on a notice 
or by the intrigues of Ly. Holland, Ly. Blessington, 
&c., &c. . . . The death of poor Thanet makes a great 
difference in my feelings as to parliamentary attend- 
ance. It was due to him to be at my post ; I feel no 
such obligation to the present earl or my dear con- 
stituents. ..." 

"Raby Castle [Earl of Darlington's], Feb. i6th, 1825. 

". . . This house is itself ^/(^r the most magnificent 
and unique in several ways that I have ever seen. 
Then what are we to say of its being presided over by a 
poplolly ! ! a magnificent woman, dressed to perfection, 
without a vestige of her former habits — in short, in 
manners as produceable a countess as the best blood 
could give you. . . . As long as I have heard of any- 
thing, I have heard of being driven into the hall of 
this house in one's carriage, and being set down by 
the fire. You can have no idea of the magnificent 
perfection with which this is accomplished. Then the 
band of musick which plays in this same hall during 
dinner ! then the gold plate ! ! and then — the poplolly 
at the head of all!!!"* 

" Raby, 20th Feby. 

". . . My lady [Darlington] drove me about and 
shewed me many lions I had not seen before. I am 
compelled to admit that, in the familiarity of a duet 
and outing, the cloven foot appeared. I don't mean 
more than that tendency to slang, which I conceive it 
impossible for any person who has been long in the 
ranks entirely to get over.f To be sure when I 

* The 3rd Earl of Darlington was created Duke of Cleveland in 
1833. By his second wife, alluded to above, who died in 1861, he had 
no children. 

t It requires an effort to realise how very recent is the toleration of 
slang in ladies of position. Men, as is amply manifest in Mr. Creevey's 
correspondence, permitted themselves to use language of the utmost 



1S25-26.J THE BIRTH OF RAILWAYS. 429 

look at these three young women,* and at this 
brazen-faced Pop who is placed over them, and shews 
that she is so, the whole transaction — I mean the 
marriage, appears to me the wickedest thing I ever 
heard of; for altho' these young ladies appear to be 
gifted with no great talents, and altho' they have all 
more or less of the quality squall, yet their manners 
are particularly correct and modest. . . ." 

" London, March 7th. 

"... I wish you could hear Atty Hill's f imitation 
of old Down Richmond upon the marriage that is 
about to take place between Mrs. Tighe's eldest son 
and a young Lady [Louisa] Lennox. The Dowr. had 
fixed her mind upon having Lord Hervey, which was 
more than he did, so Tighe and the young one 
settled their affairs. . . ." 

At this time may be noted the earliest appear- 
ance in Parliament of the great railway movement. 
Mr. Creevey vv^as appointed a member of the Com- 
mittee to deal with the Bill of the Liverpool and Man- 
chester Railway Company, to which, it would appear, 
he applied himself in no judicial frame of mind. He 
acted openly in the interests of his friends Lords 
Derby and Sefton, who, like most territorial magnates 
at that time, viewed the designs of railway engineers 
with the utmost apprehension and abhorrence. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" London, March 16, 1825. 

". . . Sefton and I have come to the conclusion 
that our Ferguson is insane. He quite foamed at the 
mouth with rage in our Railway Committee in support 
of this infernal nuisance — the loco-motive Monster, 

licence ; but, if swearing was reckoned a grace in male conversation, 
slang was pronounced a disgrace among ladies. 

* Lord Darlington's daughters. 

t Lord Arthur Hill, second son of 2nd Marquess of Downshire, 
succeeded his mother as Baron Sandys. 



430 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. ' [Cll. XVII. 

carr3ang eighty tons of goods, and navigated by a tail 
of smoke and sulphur, coming thro' every man's 
grounds between Manchester and Liverpool. He 
was supported by Scotchmen only, except a son ot 
Sir Robert Peel's, and against every landed gentle- 
man of the county — his own particular friends, who 
w^ere all present, such as Ld. Stanley, Ld. Sefton, 
Ld. Geo. Cavendish, &c." 

" 25th March. 

"... I get daily more interested about this rail- 
road — on its own grounds, to begin with, and the 
infernal, impudent, lying jobbing by its promoters. . . ." 

"31st May. 

". . . This railway is the devil's own — from 12 till 
4 daily is really too much. We very near did the 
business to-day ; we were 36 to 37 on the Bill itself. I 
led for the Opposition in a speech of half an hour. . . ." 

"June I. 

". . Well — this devil of a railway is strangled at 
last. I was sure that yesterday's division had put him 
on his last legs, and to-day we had a clear majority in 
the Committee in our favour, and the promoters of the 
Bill withdrew it, and took their leave of us. . . . We 
had to fight this long battle against an almost universal 
prejudice to start with — interested shareholders and 
perfidious Whigs, several of whom affected to oppose 
us upon conscientious scruples. Sefton's ecstacies are 
beyond, and he is pleased to say it has been all my 
doing; so it's all mighty well." 

"6th. 

". . . Another charming day we had [at Ascot]. 
Prinney came as before, bowling along the course in 
his carriage and four. In passing the young Duchess 
of Richmond's open landau he played off his nods and 
winks and kissing his hand, just as he did to all of you 
20 years ago on the Brighton racecourse. . . . Lords 
Cowper and Jersey joined our sandwich party. . . . As 
Cowper was an inmate of the Court, I inquired as to 
their goings on, and how the King lived. — ' Why,' said 
he, 'yesterday I think we sat down about 24 or 25 to 
dinner at ^ past 7, and the King ate very heartily of 



1825-26.] CREEVEY'S SEAT Ix\ JEOPARDY. 43 1 

turtle, accompanying it witii punch, sherry and cham- 
paign. The dinner alwa3^s lasts a very long time, and 
yesterday we sat very late after it. The King was in 
deep conversation with Lauderdale, and I think must 
have drunk a couple of bottles of claret before we rose 
from table.' . . . He had prepared for the week by 
having 12 oz. of blood taken from him by cupping on 
the Monday. Nevertheless, we all think he will beat 
brother York still. It was not amiss to hear bold 
York congratulating Sefton and the Countess upon 
their victory over the railway. . . . 

" Our dinner at Bruifam's yesterday was damnable 
in cookery, comfort, and everything else, tho' the dear 
Countess of Darlington was there, better dressed and 
looking better than any countess in London. Mrs. 
Brougham sat like an overgrown doll at the top of 
the table in a bandeau of roses, her face in a perpetual 
simper without utterance. BrufFam, at the other end, 
was jawing about nothing from beginning to end, 
without attending to any one, and only caring about 
hearing himself talk. The company were the Dar- 
lingtons and L}^ Arabella, the Taylors, Dr. and Mrs. 
Lushington, Lord Nugent, Anacreon Moore, a son of 
Rosslyn's, a brother of Brougham's, and myself" 

"June 25th. 
"... There has been a blow-up again between 
Prinney and Ly. Conyngham, but matters are all settled 
again thro' the kind and skilful negociation of Lau- 
derdale. She has become of late ver}'' restless and 
impatient under what she calls her terrible restraint 
and confinement, and about 10 days ago announced 
her fixed determination to go abroad. . . . Lauderdale, 
however, has satisfied her for the present that, how- 
ever blameable it was in her at first to get into her 
present situation, noiv it is her bounden duty to sub- 
mit and go thro' with it." 

Busy intrigues were afoot at this time about seats 
in Parliament. Brougham was negociating secretl}' 
with various noble lords in order to get his friends 
in ; and although his correspondence with Creevey 
was as cordial in appearance as heretofore yet 



432 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

Creevey was duly informed by kind friends what was 
going on. He deeply resented what he considered 
Brougham's treachery in trying to oust him from his 
seat, and wrote with great bitterness and frequency 
about the villainy of " Wicked Shifts." Lord Darling- 
ton had five seats to dispose of. 

M. A. Taylor, M.P., to Sir Robert Wilson. 

"Cantley, iitli Sept. 

". . . All my accustomed correspondents are 
absent from town ; I therefore have nothing from the 
great emporium of news. While Canning is viewing 
the scenery of the Lakes, and the King is fishing in a 
punt upon Virginia Water, I am bound to suppose 
there is no tempest upon the political ocean. I wish 
that Ferdinand [King of Spain] was hanged — Roths- 
child, Baring and all the gambling crew in the Gazette 
— the Sultan driven forth from Constantinople — his 
wives and concubines let loose — that balloons were 
actual and safe conveyances, and that I had a villa in 
the Thracian Bosphorus. ..." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Cantley, 21 Sept. 1825. 
"... Mrs. Taylor has had an interview with the 
Countess [of Darlington] upon my case. She said she 
now spoke with Lord Darlington's authority — that 
what she said must be considered as coming from 
himself. It was, therefore, matter of deep regret to 
him that Mrs. Taylor had not mentioned Mr. Creevey's 
case till his Parliamentary arrangements were all made, 
.which unfortunately they now were, and that all that 
remained for him now to say was that the first vacancy 
which happened in any seat of his, Mr. Creevey should 
have it, and that he never should be without one. 
Now ; altho' reversionary prospects for a gentleman 
in his 58th year are no very brilliant matters, yet I think 
it is all mighty well . . . and as she has once taken 
me and my concerns into her holy keeping, when we 
come to cement the connection with a few gambols at 



1825-26.] LAMBTON REVISITED. 433 

Raby, she may perhaps open the Earl's eyes to an 
interest in some borough which he never thought of 
before. . . . We were 23 at dinner to-day, to say 
nothing of a buck from Ld. Tankerville, another from 
Lambton, a third from Ld. Darlington, half a one from 
Lord Fitzwilliam, another half from Ld. Tavistock ; 
not to mention a turtle — also a present, and pines 
without end." 

" Cantley, Sept. 29. 

"... What a devil of a good hand Mrs. Taylor is for 
living in a storm . . . She was evidently much pleased 
with her grandee of a niece * taking the amiable and 
dutiful line to her aunt as she did. . . . There are 
usually only three balls, but, as Lady Londonderry 
justly observed to Mrs. Taylor, that it must be very 
dull for people to stay at home in their lodgings on the 
Tuesday and Thursday evenings, she got up publick 
balls for these nights also, and at all five balls she 
[Lady Londonderry] was there the first and went 
away the last . . . and the result was every one was 
charmed with her. ..." 

Despite the evil impression Creevey had received 
upon his first visit to Lambton, he returned there for 
the races in the following year. His report thereon 
to Miss Ord contains, as usual, some curious particu- 
lars of the menage. 

" Lambton, 24th Oct., 1825. 

"... Altho' our King Jog did receive me so 
graciously yesterday . . . the sunshine was of very 
limited duration. You must know by a new ordinance 
livery servants are proscribed the dining-room ; so our 
Michael and Frances [Taylor] were none the better 
for their two Cantley footmen, and this was the case 
too with Mrs. General Grey, whom I handed out to 
dinner. . . . Soup was handed round — from where, 
God knows ; but before Lambton stood a dish with 
one small haddock and three small whitings in it, 
which he instantly ordered off the table, to avoid the 

* The Marchioness of Londondeny, a very great lady indeed, who 
was staying at Cantley with her aunt, Mrs. Taylor, for Doncaster races. 



434 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

trouble of helping. Mrs, Grey and myself were at 
least ten minutes without any prospect of getting any 
servant to attend to us, altho' I made repeated applica- 
tion to Lambton, who was all this time eating his own 
fish as comfortably as could be. So my blood begin- 
ning to boil, I said : — ' Lambton, I wish you would tell 
me what quarter I am to apply to for some fish.' To 
which he replied in the most impertinent manner : — 
'The servant, I suppose.' I turned to Mills and said 
pretty loud : — ' Now, if it was not for the fuss and 
jaw of the thing, I would leave the room and the 
house this instant'; and I dwelt on the damned out- 
rage. Mills said : — ' He hears every word you say ' ; 
to which I said: 'I hope he does.' ... It was a 
regular scene. ..." 

" Nov. 3, Newton House [Earl of Darlington's]. 
". . . In taking leave of Lambton, let me observe 
once for all that nothing could be better than Lady 
Louisa,* in her quiet way, to everybody. In every 
respect and upon all occasions she is a very sensible, 
discreet person. . . . Nothing on earth can be more 
natural and comfortable than we all are here. The 
size of the house, as well as of the party, makes it 
more of a domestic concern than it is at Raby, and 
both he and she shine excessively in this point of 
view. As for her [Lady Darlington] I consider her a 
miracle. To see a * bould face ' turn into a countess, 
living in this beautiful house of her own, and never to 
shew the slightest sign of being set up, is so unlike 
all others of the kind I have seen, that she must be a 
very sensible woman. Then she is so clean, and she 
is looking so beautiful at present. ..." 

" Thorp Perrow [Mr. Milbank's], Nov. 8. 

"Well — now for Milbank and Ly. Augusta f — or 

Gusty, as he calls her. Their house is in every way 

worthy of them — a great, big, fat house three stories 

high. . . . All the living rooms are on the ground 

* Mr. Lambton's second wife. She was Lady Louisa Grey, 
daughter of the 2nd Earl Grey. 

t A daughter of Lord Darlinqton. 



1825-26.] CREEVEY AS AN AUTHOR. 435 

floor, one a very handsome one about 50 feet long, 
with a great bow furnished with rose-colored satin, 
and the whole furniture of which cost ;^4000. Every 
thing is of a piece — excellent and plentiful dinners, a 
fat service of plate, a fat butler, a table with a barrel 
of oysters and a hot pheasant, &c., wheeled into the 
drawing room every night at h past ten . . . but 
our events for record are few. ... In answer to your 
question about Brancepeth Castle, it belonged to 
Mrs. Taylor's uncle, Mr. Tempest. . . . Having left it 
to his nephew, Sir Harry Vane, the latter sold it to 
Russell, who has rebuilt the whole ancient castle. 
. . . Few people could devote ;^8o,ooo per ann. to 
accomplish the job as Russell did. Lord Londonderry 
told Ly. Ramsden he wished he had never taken 
Frances [Lady Londonderry] there, for she had raved 
of nothing else ever since, and was quite out of heart 
with all they are doing at Wynyard ; and Frances is 
quite right. " 

At this time Mr. Creevey was much taken up 
in preparing for publication a series of letters on 
Reform addressed to Lord John Russell. He sub- 
mitted the proofs to Brougham for approval, and his 
letters to Miss Ord are full of references to the 
forthcoming work. " You know," he writes, " one is 
always occupied at the last in twisting and twining 
about sentences in one's head to try if one can make 
them look better." The letters were published by 
Ridgway early in 1826 in the form of a pamphlet. 



Earl of S eft on to Mr. Creevey. 

" Croxteth, Oct. 2, 1825. 

"... I cannot help congratulating you upon your 
conversion to reform. 1 have been long convinced 
that nothing else will bring down taxation and tythes, 
and therefore would not give a farthing for any other 
remedy. ... I hear our friend the Bear Ellice must be 
a bankrupt ; he is trying to defer the evil da}^, but fall 



436 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

he must. Did you read Cobbett's life of Canning in 
the Statesman ? What the devil does he mean by all 
at once being so completely mollified, and compli- 
menting his talents and beauty? . . . Nothing can 
exceed the distress here among the farmers : 40 per 
cent, reduction of rents is the lowest they talk of, and 
even then I don't believe they will be able to pay the 
remainder. Little Derby is very sore. Old Black- 
burne * begins to think everything is not quite right ; 
he even goes so far as to say he does not see how it 
will all end." 

The year 1826 opened upon a very different scene 
to the preceding one. Activity in all branches of 
industry had brought about the usual results in head- 
long speculation and over production. A period of 
depression and inactivity followed in due sequence 
upon the wave of prosperity, so that the autumn 
witnessed the failure of many country banks and the 
collapse of many commercial houses. The Roman 
Catholic agitation in Ireland was becoming formidable ; 
amendments were moved to the Address in both Houses 
calling upon the Government to repeal or revise the 
Corn Laws, and thereby alleviate the general distress, 
and the commercial panic had to be dealt with by 
legislation on the currency. " The political sky looks 
very cloudy," wrote Mr. Croker to Lord Hertford; 
"the three C's — Corn, Currency and Catholics — will 
perplex if not dissolve the Government." As regards 
the currency, a measure was passed prohibiting the 
circulation of bank notes for less than £$ face value. 
Scotland successfully resisted this restriction, and 
enjoys her £1 notes to this day, but these disappeared 
entirely from England. 

The Corn Laws were more thorny matter to 

* John Blackburne of Orford Hall [1754-1833], M.P. for Lancashire 
for 46 years. 



1S25-26.] LADY GREY'S VIEWS. 437 

handle ; nevertheless, in May an Act was passed per- 
mitting the importation of 500,000 quarters of foreign 
wheat, irrespective of the current price in English 
markets at the time. Thus was the gauntlet thrown 
down between the rival interests of agriculture and 
manufacture — the land and the towns ; presenting a 
difficult and disagreeable dilemma for the great Whig 
landowners, and driving a wedge deep into the Tory 
phalanx, which had so long withstood external assault. 



Countess Grey to Mrs. Taylor. 

"Tuesday [February, 1S26]. 

". . . Things are worse and worse in the City. I 
have just had a note from thence, and this day all the 
things in the Stocks have fallen worse than ever. 
Every soul to whom a shilling is due comes to ask for 
it. In short, it is a fearful time. As to the opinions 
on the £1 and £2 notes business, people are so divided 
that it is impossible to come at the truth. Sir Robert 
Wilson, Brougham, Lord Lansdowne are with Minis- 
ters, and even Lord Dacre; then others — the strongest 
of the Tories — are against them. Lord Auckland 
thinks it ruin to us all, and even those who vote for 
it say that it will make things worse for the present. 
Ld. Dacre says that he makes up his mind to get no 
rents for 2 or 3 years, but that he thinks it will 
eventually do good. I understand nothing about it, 
but dislike it if it will prevent us receiving rents, which 
seems allowed on all hands. 

"Last night Harriet had her ecarte party, and it 
was very good and very agreeable, except that I lost 
my £\o, which made me rather blue. 

" There is a strong report of the Chancellor [Eldon] 
going out. Gifford, it is supposed, cannot be Chan- 
cellor, as all the Bar declare him incompetent, and he 
himself feels it. Copley is trying, but they say it is 
impossible, as he is not a Chancery man.* Some say 

* Nevertheless, he became Chancellor [Lord Lyndhurst] in the 
following year. 



438 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

that our Leach must get it, as he is the only one who 
can do the business. I think it more likely that the 
Seals will be put in commission. If Leach gets it, Mr. 
Vane is sure to get the best thing going. He told me 
so long since. To be sure, we won't get all the best 
things for all our friends, and if he don't obey we will 
neither dine with him nor allow him to play at ecarte. 
Lady Elizabeth [Conyngham's] marriage still drags on. 
She now says she cannot think of fixing a time for it, 
as she cannot make up her mind to quit her mother ; 
that is — Lady C[onyngham] puts this into her mouth, 
and then says : — ' It is so, is it not, Tissy ? ' — * Yes, 
mama,' answers she. ... I hear from those who have 
been there that the Cottage * is more dull than ever : 
that Lady C. throws herself back on the sofa and never 
speaks ; and the opinion is (which I don't believe) that 
she hates Kingy. We have just got over Shoenfeld, the 
man who fought with Cradock about Mme. de G[enlis] 
and Mme. de Firmagon. The Dauphine at Lady Gran- 
ville's ball said to him : — * Monsieur, quand partez- 
vous?' which was reckoned a conge, and he was in 
consequence sent here as attache to Esterhazy. He is 
all whiskers and white teeth, and evidently means to 
be a ladykiller, and, if I am not mistaken, will succeed. 
I find that he was with Esterhazy at the very time we 
were living so much with the Princesse, and that he 
used to dine every day with us all, at the bottom of 
the table. So little effect did he make, that we never 
saw the animal ; but he has now gotten a new applique 
in the shape of a top knot, and passes off for a youth 
a bonnes fortunes, which is very amusing. ... I am 
happy to tell you that a serious phalanx is arranging 
for the Age newspaper. About 6 or 7 people are going 
to prosecute — Mr. Fox Lane for his wife, who they 
chose to say 'had exposed herself in her box at the 
Opera with Poodle Byng.' She had not seen him even 
by accident for 8 months, and then only in the streets ; 
and on the very night mentioned she was sitting over 
her own fire with her father and brother ! 

" Lord Kirkwall,t it is said, marries Lord Boston's 

* George IV.'s cottage at Virginia Water, where Lady Conyngham 
resided. 

t Afterwards 5th Earl of Orkney. 



1S25-26.] LORD J. RUSSELL ON REFORM. 439 

daughter. The Belfasts have bought Lord Boston's 
house in my street. . . . Houses are dearer than ever. 
Their's will stand them furnished in ;£"40o a year. . . , 
If I dared, I would entreat of you to take no more blue 
pill. I think that you are ruining yourself, but I know 
that you have no faith in my knowledge of medicine ; 
but what can be so bad as to take medicine to that 
excess as to bring on such misery as to affect the 
mouth.* . . ." 



Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

"13th Feby. 
"... I dined yesterday with old Sussex. After 
dinner he proposed Stephenson's and Lady Mary 
Keppel's healths,t and thus announced that most in- 
teresting and opulent alliance. Albemarle was there, 
and seemed contented. I hear old Coke is furious 
about it.J . . . We shall have a division on Robinson's 
plan.§ Most of the Oppn. will vote for him. I cer- 
tainly shall. We are gone too far to recede." 

"Alnwick, Feby. 25, 1S26. 

"... I send you an interesting scrap I received last 
night from the tip-top reformer of all — Lord John 
Russell. I had desired Ridgway to send him a copy 
of ' the Work,' and at the same time I wrote him [Lord 
J. R.] a few lines myself. It was always one of my 
hobbies on this subject to make little Johnny's speech 
for him, knowing that my materials were much better 
than any he had ever produced, or had the means of 
producing. So I was quite sure, if I succeeded, he 
would be gravelled, and it is quite clear he is so, and 
I am glad of it, for he is a conceited little puppy. If 
he is so complimentary as to think the work 'calculated 
to do good when money ceases to be uppermost,' I 

* By salivation. 

t Henry Frederick Stephenson, natural son of the nth Duke of 
Norfolk, private secretar>^ to H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, married 
Lady Mary Keppel, 3rd daughter of the 4th Earl of Albemarle. 

X Mr. Coke of Holkham had married Lady Anne Keppel, an elder 
daughter of Lord Albemarle's. 

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer's Currency Bill. 

2 II 



440 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

wonder when he thinks his speeches upon Reform will 
come into play as doing good ! " 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Brancepeth Castle, March 13, 1826. 

". . . Tho' I, say it who should not say it, I don't 
think I ever followed faster hounds than my friend 
Russell's, nor did I ever see a more beautiful run, 
nor a fox more gallantly run into and killed. I was 
in at the death, i assure you. . . . Oh what a house 
this is for beautiful apartments and comforts without 
end ! O'Callaghan, who knows Lowther well, says 
it is not to be mentioned in the same year with it — 
such perfect good taste in everything, and ,the .man 
who did it all just lived in it seven months. . . .'.' 

" London, March 20th. 

"... I have just been at Ridgway's for the first 
time, and altho' I am only in a 2nd edition,* I know I 
am in port. Hobhouse,t who, you know, is a brother 
author, told me yesterday unasked that it was unique 
and quite unanswerable, and so he intended to sa}![ on 
Lord John Russell's motion next month. . . . This I 
shall immediately follow up by putting my name 
to it." 

** London, March 21. 

" Never did I see anything like the town for 
dulness. . . . The only thing going on is at L}^ 
Tankerville's and a few other houses, where ladies 
of easy virtue meet every night, and as many dandies 
as the town can supply. Ecarte is the universal go 
with them — the men winning and losing hundreds a 
night ; and as the ladies play guineas, their settlement 
each night cannot be a small one. I met Vesuvius % 
yesterday, who came up to me open-mouthed about 
my ivork. He said a review of it would appear very 
shortly in the Westminster Review. ... I saw little 
white-faced Lord John [Russell] too, but not a word 
of compliment from him. ..." 

* Of his pamphlet on Reform. 

t John Cam Hobhouse, M.P. [1776-1854], created Lord Broughton 
in 1 851 : a copious writer. :|: Hon. Douglas Kinnaird. 



1825-26.]' CANNING AND THE OPPOSITION. 441 

" April 14th. 

"... I was in time to hear Hobhouse tell Canning 
that it was with real heartfelt pain that he still heard 
from him his deliberate opinion against all parlia- 
mentary reform, because he [Hobhouse] was one of 
a great portion of this country who looked to him 
with gratitude and affection for his conduct since he 
came into office, which would amount to VENERA- 
TION if he would but give way upon this vital 
question ! ! ! And this from a man who took such 
pains to insult Canning by a picture of him three or 
four years ago in the House ! To do some part of 
the House justice, this affectionate address was re- 
ceived with a very marked titter . . . from the Old 
Tories at the expense of both Hobhouse and Can- 
ning' Lord Rosslyn satisfied me afterwards hy facts 
that nothing can equal the rage of the Old Tory 
Highflyers at the liberal jaw of Canning and Huskis- 
son. ... I saw Brougham, who told me that by some 
accident the letters to Lord John Russell * would not 
be reviewed in the next number of the Edinbord 
Review, which had been in the press for a fortnight. 
1 beg you will suppress your indignation, as I do, at 
this monstrous piece of perfidy and villainy, consider- 
ing all that has passed between him and me on the 
subject. ... I dined at Sefton's yesterday. Bold 
York dined with them the last time as usual, and I 
trust will do so again, but his life is considered in 
great jeopardy. To think of these two men — him and 
his brother, the King — both turned 60, and terrible 
bad lives, having new palaces building for them ! 
The Duke of York's is 150 feet by 130 outside, with 
40 compleat sleeping apartments, and all this for a 
single man. . . . Billy Clarence,! too, is rigging up 
in a small way in the stable-yard, but that is doing 
by the Government." 

" April 26th, Newmarket [at Lord Sefton's]. 

". . . My racing campaign is over for the present, 
and I have had four very agreeable days — very good 
sport each day, and one's time one way and another 

* I,e. Creevey's pamphlet on Reform. f William IV« 



443 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVII. 

quite occupied. . . . We have had Jersey, Shelley, F. 
Russell, Ld. Wilton, Bob Grosvenor, Lord Titchfield 
and Lord George Bentinck, Lady Caroline and Paw- 
lett, Mills, Irby, Wortley and his son, different days. 
Wortley is dying for me to pair off with him, but I 
must do my duty you know. ... I start per coach at 
^ past ten, and as the distance is only 60 miles, I hope 
to be in time for Michael [Taylor]'s dinner." 

" May 3rd. 
"... I was one of the majority last night in sup- 
port of his Majesty's Ministers for cheaper corn than 
the landed grandees will now favor us with. ... It 
certainly is the boldest thing that ever was attempted 
by a Government — after deprecating any discussion 
on the Corn Laws during the present session, to try 
at the end of it to carry a Corn Law of their own b}?^ 
a coup-de-main, and to hold out the landed grandees 
as the enemies of the manufacturing population if 
they oppose it. ... If a good ultra-Tory Govern- 
ment could be made. Canning and Huskisson must 
inevitably be ruined by this daring step. You never 
heard such language as the old sticklers apply to 
them; and, unhappil3'' for Toryism, that prig Peel 
seems as deeply bitten by ' liberality,' in every way 
but on the Catholic question, as any of his fellows. 
I was laughing with Lord Dudley under tlie gallery 
at this curious state of things, who said if the Duke 
of York wd. but come down to the House of Lords 

and declare that 'so help him G , corn should 

never be under 80s.,' he would drive this Radical 
Government to the devil in an instant." 

, . " May 5. 

". . . Well — the villains jibbed after all. ... In 
language the Ministers are everything we could wish, 
but in measttres they dare not go their lengths for fear 
of being beat, as undoubtedly they would. Indeed it 
is very doubtful if even this temporising scheme of 
letting in 500,000 quarters of corn, in the event of 
scarcity, will go down in the Lords. ... I never saw 
anything like the fury of both Whig and Tory land- 
holders at Canning's speech ; but the Tories much 



1835-36.] THE CORN LAWS. 445 

the most violent of the two. ... It is considered, in 
short, as a breaking down of the Corn Laws." 

" 8th. 
". . . The land has rallied in the most boisterous 
manner. The new scheme is considered as a regular 
humbug, and a perfect insult to the agricultural intel- 
lect In short. Canning and Huskisson are rising (or 
falling) hourly in the execration of all lovers of high 
prices, Whig and Tory, but particularly the latter. . . ." 

"nth. 
", . . On Monday we beat the land black and blue 
about letting in foreign corn ; but the Lords, it is said, 
are not to be so easily beat as the booby squires. 
There is to be a grand fight — the Ministers and 
Bishops against the Rutlands, Beauforts, Hertfords, 
&c. Liverpool gives out that, if he is beat, he will 
give up the Government, which may be safely said, as 
there is no one else to take it." 

" 1 2th. 

". . . Well, you see the landholders, high and low, 
are the same mean devils, and alike incapable of fight- 
ing when once faced by a Government without any 
land at all. Was there ever such a rope of sand as 
the House of Lords last night? to be beat by 3 to i 
after all their blustering. ..." 

" 13th. 
". . . Sefton and I voted differently on the late 
measures in our House ; but, to do him justice, no 
one is more amused at the contemptible figure and 
compleat defeat of both Squires and Lords. The 
charm of the power of the Landed Interest is gone ; 
and in a new Parliament Canning and Huskisson 
may effect whatever revolution they like in the Corn 
Laws. ..." 

" 23rd. 

"... I dined with poor Kinnaird yesterday, and 

the sight of such persons as him and her in their 

present condition is as striking a moral lesson as 

the world can furnish. He is the only man of real 



444 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI I. 

genuine vivacity I know left in the world ; and, wreck 
as he is, he still preserves the lead in that depart- 
ment. He is doomed to death, and his sufferings are 
dreadful. Sefton drove down Alava, Douglas Kin- 
naird and myself ; we were shown into his bedroom, 
where he lies upon a couch, with a covering over 
every part of him but his head and arms ; and then he 
was wheeled in to dinner. . . . Then to look at her — 
a perfect shadow, living, as it were, by stealth like- 
wise ; and to think of what she was when the whole 
play-house at Dublin used to rise and applaud when- 
ever her sister. Lady Foley, and herself used to enter 
the house, in admiration of their beauty only, and not 
their rank, for they did so to no others of the Leinster 
family. ... It is just 20 years since I saw old Fox 
with his white favor in his hat upon the marriage of 
his cousin Lady Olivia Fitzgerald with Kinnaird.' 



( 445 ) 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

1827. 

The hour, long expected and prepared for by Canning, 
at length struck. The public service of Lord Liverpool 
was brought to a close by his fatal illness in February, 
1827. Undoubtedly, by experience, brilliant oratory, 
and commanding ability, there was no one in the Tory 
ranks on the same level with Canning. There were 
impediments, arising both from the King's distrust of 
Canning on the Roman Catholic question, and the 
distrust of his own colleagues — Wellington, Eldon, 
Peel, &c. — upon that and other grounds. Canning 
occupied in the Ministerial party much the same 
elevation as Brougham did in the Opposition : every- 
body paid tribute to the talents of both men, but 
nobody trusted them or imagined that either of them 
had much in view except his own aggrandisement. 

The most powerful engine of statecraft in the 
Georgian era was patronage ; and although those 
great hotbeds of patronage, the Bar and the Army, 
were in the grasp of his High Tory colleagues, Eldon 
and Wellington, Canning had used his influence over 
Liverpool with judicious foresight. He had secured 
the Lord High Stewardship for Lord Conyngham, and 
the Under-Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs for his 
son, Lord Mount Charles, thereby earning for himself 
Lady Conyngham's paramount influence at Court. 
Nor did he neglect (and none knew better than he 



446 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVI 1 1. 

how to cultivate) the good graces of Madame 
de Lieven and the King's pliysician, Sir William 
Knighton. With these cards in his hand, he played 
a strong game against tremendous odds. One cannot 
but admire the skill and nerve of the player, however 
much one may deplore the temper displayed by his 
formidable opponent, the Duke of Wellington, who, 
when he found himself outwitted, threw up the 
command of the Army. Creevey, as a bystander, saw 
a good deal of the game. 

Mr. Crccvey to Miss Ord. 

"Brooks's, Feby. lo, 1827. 

". . . As Scroop * was very gracious, I said I must 
ask him if what 1 heard was true, that the Duke of 
Clarence said to him at the [Duke of York's] funeral 
that he hoped before long to see him in the House of 
Lords.f He said it was not at the funeral, but when 
the King was last at the House of Lords, when he 
[Clarence] did say so to him in the hearing of Lord 
Gwydir, and shaking his hand most heartily at the 
same time : — ' But,' said the Duke [of Norfolk], ' I 
ought to add that he said precisely the same thing to 
me at the Coronation, and then voted against us on 
the very first opportunity ! ' So our Billy is a wag, is 
he not? ..." 

" 13th Feby. 

". . . Tyrwhitt continues to see the King at all 
times, in his bed as well as out of it. . . . He says that 
Knighton is the greatest villain as well as the lowest 
blackguard that lives, as well as the most vindictive 
chap. He is eternally upon the watch, and more than 
ever during Tom's [Tyrwhitt's] tete-a-tete. He came in 
without knocking, and planted himself at the bottom 
of the bed, Prinney observing when he saw him : — 
'Damme, I thought you had been at the other end of 

* The 1 2tli Duke of Norfolk. 

t The Duke of Norfolk was debarred as a Roman Catholic from 
sitting in the House of Lords. 



iSj;-] LIVERPOOL'S LAST ILLNESS. 447 

the town ! ' In the course of this conversation, Prinney 
said : — ' I wish my Ministers would leave off this new 
fashion of giving ambassadors leave of absence from 
their stations. Here is my Lord Bloomfield, I find, 
has got leave from his right honorable friend and 
Secretary Canning to come home; but if he comes 
to me. 111 take care to hurry him out again.' * 

" It was not amiss to hear the different reasons 
assigned by Taylor and Tom [Tyrwhitt] for the fall 
of this truly great man Bloomfield. Taylor's account 
is direct from Denison — alias Lady Conyngham, and 
he says that the year the King went to Ireland, Bloom- 
field went first to prepare ever^^thing, and being at 
the play at Dublin when ' God save the King ' was 
called for and vehemently applauded, Bloomfield was 
kind enough to step to the front of the box he was in, 
and to express by his bows and gestures his deep 
sense of gratitude for this distinction, and that this 
being reported to the Sovereign, he never forgave 
it. . . . Bloomfield was ruined from that moment if 
you can call a man ruined who, in our recollection 
twenty years back, was little better than a common 
footman ; and who, having made himself a fortune by 
palpable cheating and robbery in every department 
he had to do with, demands and obtains an Irish 
peerage, the Order of the Bath, and an embassy to a 
crowned head . . . this, in truth, being the price of 
keeping his master's secrets.* And this is the apothe- 
cary Knighton's hold too, he having all that other 
rogue McMahon's papers and letters . . . Lady 
Beauchamp gave McMahon ;^io,ooo for getting her 
husband advanced from a baron to an earl." 

"Feb. 17. 

". . . Here's a business for you. Liverpool has 
had a paralytic stroke, so says Croker; but West- 
morland only admits that he is not well. However 
I have no doubt Croker's account is the true one. . . . 

* Lieut.-General Benjamin Bloomfield, R.A., was successively 
gentleman-attendant, marshal, and chief equerry and private secretary 
to George IV. as Prince of Wales and Prince Regent. He succeeded 
Sir John McMahon in 1817 as keeper of the privy purse, went as 
Minister to Stockholm in 1824, and was created an Irish peer in 1825. 



448 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVLII. 

It is quite true about Ld. Liverpool. He had a fit of 
apoplexy at ten this morning. He is a little better, 
but politically dead. Canning is better, but has some 
extraordinary violent pain over one eye, nor will he 
be the better for this nev;r excitement. He'll be beat 
as well as Liverpool. . . . Did you ever see a more 
disgraceful thing under all the circumstances of the 
country than this plunder of ^9000 a year for our 
Billy,* after 'having got ;^3000 a year by the Duke of 
York's death. Who would be in a place, without the 
possibility of stopping such villainy ? Yet the division 
was respectable, altho' Mother Cole the leader and 
Jack Calcraft and others did vote for the job. Holland 
was under the gallery all the time, canvassing openly 
in the most disgusting manner on behalf of his dear 
and illustrious connection." 

"19th. 

" Well— what is your real opinion as to who is to 
supply Liverpool's place ? I think somehow it must 
be Canning after all, and that then he'll die of if. . . ." 

" March 5. 

"... Yesterday about 3 p.m. Dandy Raikes, who 
is a member of Brooks's, but was never seen there 
before, having watched Brougham go in there, followed 
him, and taking a' position with his back to the fire, 
said aloud : — ' Mr. Brougham, I am very much obliged 
to you for the speech you made at my expence. I 
don't know what latitude you gentlemen of the Bar 
consider yourselves entitled to, but I am come here pur- 
posely to insult you in the presence of your club.' . . . 
Brougham was eating some soup, and merely replied 
with great composure : — ' Mr. Raikes, you have chosen 
a strange place and occasion for offering your insult,' 
and shortly after walked away, there being present 
about 8 or 10 persons. I learnt this from Ferguson, 
who had just entered Brooks's as Raikes was con- 
cluding. We both agreed that Brougham must call 
Raikes out, and that the latter must be expelled the 
club for the marvellous outrage. ... In going into 
Brooks's at 5, which you may suppose was pretty well 

* H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence [William IV.]. 



1027.] CHALLENGE TO BROUGHAM. 449 

crammed with gossipers, no tidings were to be had of 
our Bruffam; but upon returning home * I found he had 
been here in pursuit of Fergy ; and, having caught him, 
had begged him to carry a challenge for him to Raikes, 
which the General peremptorily declined to do upon 
the grounds of having been mixed up in so many such 
things. So Brougham went off after Wilson. I learnt 
this at six, and our Taylor and myself went off at 
seven to dine at Denison's, where we had Lords Say 
and Scale and Reay, W. Pawlett, Ellice, Ferguson and 
Stephenson. Brougham was to have been ; but as we 
all supposed he was otherwise engaged we sat down 
to dinner without him ; tho' in about ten minutes in 
he came, occupied a chair which was next to me, and 
having talked exclusively to myself the whole night 
upon every subject but the one, I never knew him 
more agreeable in my life. Upon coming away at 
eleven, we were to bring Fergy down here in our coach, 
but Brougham stopt him ; and when he followed us, 
we found that Wilson had forwarded his challenge to 
Raikes, but that in the meantime Brougham had been 
taken into custody, carried to Bow Street, and bound 
over to keep the peace. This had been the handiwork 
of Jack the Painter, alias Spring Rice, who was present 
at the row at Brooks's, and had taken himself off to 
Bow Street immediately to inform ; his only object, 1 
have no doubt, being not to lose Brougham's vote 
to-night upon that most vital of all subjects — the 
Catholic question. . . . From the long time that has 
elapsed since Brougham made the offensive speech in 
question, and from the extraordinary mode adopted 
by Raikes to insult him, I cannot but believe that he 
has been worked up to this step by such chaps as 
Lowther, Glengall and Belfast, and that he was made 
to believe Brougham was a shy cock; for Lady Glengall 
has always been harping upon that tack of late, as how 
he was made to marry Mrs, Brougham by one of her 
brothers upon a certain event being known, and such 
stuff as this,t Lady Mary Butler has just been here, 

* Mr. Creevey, on losing his seat in Parliament, had taken up 
permanent abode with his friends the Taylors, in Whitehall. 

t Mrs. Brougham was a widow — Mrs. Spalding of the Holm in 
Galloway — when she married Brougham. She was a daughter of 
Sir William Eden of West Auckland, co. Durham. 



450 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cfl. XVIII. 

and said that Mr. Raikes was with them last night, 
and that Mr. Brougham had been arrested, which zvas 
thought very odd. So he has got into a rare mess with 
these devils. . . . Tankerville has just said to me it was 

Suite right in Spring Rice to inform Sir Richard 
lirnie [?] of Brougham and Raikes. He you know is 
the first authority as a fighting man." 

" March 6tli. 
". . . The King comes to town on Thursday, deeply 
impregnated, it is said, with his father's conscientious 
scruples against the Catholics. . . . Lady Conyngham 
writes word to her brother that the great man will 
not permit any one whatever to speak to him upon 
the subject of Lord Liverpool's illness, or who is to 
succeed him. Moreover, he adds that he will not be 
spoken to about such matters for some time yet to come. 
Was there ever such a child or Bedlamite ? or were 
there ever such a set of lickspittles as his Ministers to 
endure such conduct? ..." 

"7th. 

". . . The Catholic question was lost by four last 
night ; but it was, in truth, a fight for power and not 
for the Catholics. ... So far the business is done 
that the Cabinet must be broken up ; at least it appears 
impossible it should be otherwise. Who is to be 
uppermost remains to be seen ; ultimately, I think 
Canning must win, tho' he would have no chance if 
the King really has the anti-Catholic feelings of his 
father, and had but a hundredth part of his courage. 
But he is a poor devil. ... In going up to Audley 
Street I called upon the Pet * in Arlington Street. . . . 
I think his principal amusement was a note he had 
got from old Lady Salisbury, in which she says : — 
* As I find Creevey can't dine with us on Sunday, sup- 
pose we change our da.y to Wednesday, when f hope 
he will be disengaged. I leave it to you to settle with 
him.' So I think to have lived to be called 'Creevey' 
by old Dow. Salisbury, and to have her dinner party 
put off for my convenience, is far beyond what any 
mortal could have predicted. 

"Well, our Brooks's parliament has just been 
sitting in judgment on Dandy Raikes — an immense 

* Lord Sefton, 



1827.J CREEVEY ENJOYS HIS FREEDOM. 45' 

meeting, old Fitzwilliam in the chair. It ended, as 
it should do, in Raikes sending an apology to the 
club; but matters are getting worse and worse as to 
Brougham, and I see distinctl}/- he will have to fight 
Raikes after all. Kangaroo Cooke is Raikes's second. 
Dear Lady Darlington is just come in to us, and she 
has not a doubt but that B. must cross the water and 
have this business out ; which, of course, is her lord's 
opinion likewise, and so says the town in general." 

" 9th. 

". . . The Monarch stole back to Windsor yester- 
day, having been fifteen days at Brighton without 
leaving his dressing-room, or seeing the face of a 
single human being — servants, tailors and doctors 
excepted. What the devil is it to come to ? This of 
course is our Denison's account from his sister. . . . 
Old Billy * is much more tender than any one else in 
his regrets about my being out of Parliament. He is 
always at it, and before people. . . . However, it is all 
mighty well ; for, notwithstanding that the Honorable 
House has been at its best this week in the interest of 
its debates and the conflict of parties, I have never felt 
any other sentiment than that of gratification at not 

being there — so help me ! Such feeling, I suppose, 

is partly idleness, partly contempt for all the per- 
formers, and a conviction from long experience that 
no possible good can be effected by such an assembly, 
to say nothing" of the perfidy of our own chaps in 
particular, whenever a chance of doing any good 
arises." 

"13th. 

" We had a rum dinner enough at Denison's on 
Saturday altho' the Earl of Darlington ivas there, and 
a very merry one at Kensington [Palace] on Sunday, 
where he and my lady were likewise, and about 14 of 
us. The Duke [of Sussex] handed out the Countess, 
the Earl Lady Mary Stephenson, and Mr. Creevey 
Lady Cis. The Duke said : — ' Come, Creevey, come 
and sit next to Lord Darlington;' which of course I 
did, and he was mighty playful with me all the day." 

* Lord \Villiam Russell, brother of the 5th Duke of Bedford. He 
was murdered in 1840 by his French valet Courvoisier. 



4S2 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

"15th. 

". . . Duncannon shewed me a letter written by 
the wife of the jaoler in the county of Galway to the 
maid servants in Lord Besborough's house in that 
county. ... I think you will admit it has very pretty 
fun in it. 

"'Mrs. Murphy's compliments to the ladies of 
Wandler [?]. If the maids would like to see Sergeant 
Black hang'd she will be happy of the honor of their 
company at breakfast to-morrow. I will have the 
pleasure of conducting the ladies to the gallows. Mrs. 
Murphy will take care that the execution shall be 
deferred till the ladies arrive.' " 

" April 2. 

". . . Much has been going on at Windsor lately 
upon our ministerial projects. Canning and Wellington 
were closeted with Prinney one day, Peel for as long 
the next, and then — best of all the three — Cheerful 
Charlie * went down yesterday, his object being, it is 
said, to protest on behalf of himself and brother 
Tories against Canning being cock of the walk. . . ." 

"April nth. 

" The town will have it to-day that all is settled — 
Canning Minister, and that he has received the King's 
commands to form a Govt, on the same principles as the 
last ; . . . yet I don't believe it, because Tankerville 
dined yesterday with the Duke of Wellington, who 
told him that all was still at sea, and that he — Tanker- 
ville — knew just as much how it would all end as he — 
Wellington — did. Now we all know that, with all his 
faults, Wellington is precisely the man to speak the 
truth upon such an occasion without either design or 
humbug. I would stake my life it was as he said at 
the time he said it. ..." 

Mr. Creevey's confidence in the Duke's candour on 
this occasion w^as scarcely justified. On the very day 
that Wellington made the above statement to Lord 

* The 5th Duke of Rutland. 



18-7.] A CABINET CRISIS. 453 

Tankerville, he had received Canning's letter informing 
him that he had been commissioned by the King "to 
lay before his Majesty ... a plan of arrangements for 
the reconstruction of the Administration," and adding, 
" I need not add how essentially the accomplishment 
must depend upon your Grace's continuance as a 
member of the Cabinet." To this Wellington replied 
on the same day, intimating his anxious desire "to 
serve his Majesty as I have done hitherto in the 
Cabinet, with the same colleagues. But before I can 
give an answer to your obliging proposition, I should 
wish to know who the person is whom you intend to 
propose to his Majesty as the head of the Govern- 
ment." There was something of wilful misunder- 
standing, if indeed it was misunderstanding, in the 
Duke's failure to perceive that the King had entrusted 
Canning with the formation of a Cabinet. 

Mr, Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Holkham, April 14th. 

"This is a damned bore, you must know, not 
having the London letters and newspapers till four 
o'clock in the afternoon. It's all mighty fine for King 
Tom * to have his own house the post-house, which it 
is ; but give me a professional one in preference to a 
squirearchy postmaster. ... I was more delighted 
with my approach to this house than ever, and so I 
am now with everything both within it and without it 
— except the cmnpany^ who, God knows, are rum enough, 
and totally unworthy of all Lord Chief Justice Coke 
has done for them in creating the estate, and the Earl 
of Leicester in building and furnishing the house. 
Our worthy King Tom is decidedly the best ; but — 
without offence be it said — he by no means comes up 
to his ancestor the Chief Justice. . . . Digby and Lady 

* Mr. Coke of Holkham. 



454 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

Andover * are both speechless [erased^ ; Stanhope and 
Mrs. Stanhope are worthy, honest, absent, lackadaisical 
bodies that don't seem to know where they are or who 
they are with ; and this is oui" ipresent stock, except a 
young British Museum artist, who is classing manu- 
scripts, and a silent parson without a name ! But then 
— what have we not in reserve? Do not we expect 
Lord John Russell, the Knight of Kerry, Spring Rice, 
and various other great and publick men? We do 
indeed! tho' during the different times I have been 
here, I have known many expected who never came. 
But you'll not quote me. In the mean time, it's all the 
same to me whether they^ come or not. I came to see 
the place. I doat upon it. ... I was not sufficiently 
struck when I have been here before with the furniture 
of the walls in the three common living rooms, which 
is Genoa velvet, and what is m6re, it has been up ever 
since the house was built, which is eighty years ago ; 
and yet it is as fresh as a four-year-old. To be sure, 
the said Earl of Leicester was no bad hand at finishing 
his work : never was a house so built outside and in. 
The gilded roofs of all the rooms and the doors would 
of themselves nowadays take a fortune to make ; and 
his pictures are perfect, tho' not numerous." 

Canning's appointment as premier was the signal 
for the resignation of those Ministers who had hitherto 
resisted the Roman Catholic claims — Wellington, 
Eldon, Bathurst, Melville, Westmorland, Bexley, and 
Peel. Canning immediately opened negociations with 
the Whig leaders — Lansdowne, &c.— for a coalition. 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Crecvey. 

"London, April 13, 1827. 

"They all declare their motive for resigning is 
strictly personal — that the Catholics have nothing to do 
with it ; it never came into question. The D. of Wel- 
lington, who has also given up the Army, says nothing 

* Lady Andover, widow of the eldest son of the 15th Earl of Suffolk, 
married Admiral Sir Henry Digby, K.C.B. 



i827.] MISCHIEVOUS TIMES. 455 

shall induce him to connect himself with that man. 
He has just told this to Ly. Jersey, and has shown her 
letters — one from Canning to him, announcing that he 
had received his Majesty's commands to form a Govern- 
ment, This he answered to the King. He says 
Canning's letter was most impertinent. . . . Peel says 
he could not serve under Canning, nor would any of 
the others. . . . Lord Londonderry has resigned the 
Bedchamber in a letter to the King saying he had 
prevented the Queen being received at Vienna, and 
that as H.M. had given his confidence to a man who 
entertained such different opinions on that subject, he 
could no longer serve him. In short, traits of humour 
are without end. Bathurst did not know of the 
Chancellor's, Wellington's and Peel's resignation till 
he missed them at the Cabinet dinner at Wynne's on 
Wednesday. He went home and wrote a very formal 
letter of resignation to Canning. ... If Opposition 
support, Canning may stand, and they certainly ought 
to keep out these villains." 



Mrs. Taylor to Mr. Creevey. 

"Whitehall, 17th April. 

"My dear Mr. Creevey, 

" What a goose you were to leave town in 
such delightful mischievous times ! Dear Brougham 
arrived the night before last upon a summons from 
Lord Lansdowne. . . . He called upon Lord Darlington 
on his way up, and I see his object is to get those two 
to take office, as an excuse for himself He is out- 
rageous at the idea of Copley * being Chancellor, and 
told me he was sure it would never be. . . . As you 
may believe, he is in a very disturbed state, and up to 
his ears in some intrigue or other." 

"21st. 

". . . Brougham was here last night in a state of in- 
sanity after the negociation between Ld. Lansdowne 
and Canning was broke off, which it was, in consequence 

• Sir John Copley, who, on becoming Lord Chancellor on Lord 
Eldon's resignation at this time, was created Baron Lyndhurst. 

2 I 



45^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIIL 

of the former not consenting to an entire Protestant 
Government in Ireland* From this he went to a 
meeting he and Sir M. Wilson got up at Brooks's, 
consisting of Jack the Painter,t the Knight of Kerry, 
the Calcrafts and a few more shabby ones, anxious for 

Elace at any rate; and there it was agreed to send 
,d. Auckland and the younger Calcraft to Ld. Lans- 
downe to remonstrate, and to prevail upon him to 
renew the negociation. . . . Brougham told me he had 
refused being Attorney-General, but I don't believe it 
was really offered to him, for I hear the higher powers 
objected to him. 



Henry Bt'ougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"April 2ist, 1827. 

" My dear C., 

" As I am sure by instinct that you are with the 
true and faithful servants of the Lord in this time of 
our trial, and not with the vain and foolish Malignants, 
I write to say that the negociation was off last night, 
and we had a row at Brooks's (which I own I created) 
and the negociation is on again to-day, with a fair 
prospect of success. These difficulties come from 
some of our friends being still in the year 1780. . . . 
Sefton's letters would put life into a wheelbarrow, or 
anything but a superannuated Whig. My principle is 
— anything to lock the door for ever on Eldon and Co. 
I have the easier pushed this great matter, because I 
can have no sort of interest in its success. My 
crimes (which I prize as my glory) of 1820 are on 
my head; J and by common consent the King is to be 
o-ratified." 



* I.e. a Lord Lieutenant, Chancellor, and Secretary opposed to 
Catholic Emancipation. 

t Mr. Spring Rice, created Lord Monteagle in 1839. 
X His defence of Queen Caroline. 



i827.] BROUGHAM IN THE THICK OF IT. 457 



"April 27, 1827. 

**Dear C, 

" I fear you are a rural politician— rwm 
amator — one of the provincials of whom Jonathan 
Raine said in his N. Circuit verses — 

' Quid memorem quotquot, rurali more, colonis 
Ruris amatores dant stca jura suis ? ' 

So you have a politick of your own, as Maude has a 
law. How can you, being of {illegible} mind, possibly 
think that the Ministry — or any Ministry — can stand 
on volunteer and candid support ? My only principle 
is : — ' Lock the door on Eldon and Co. ;' and this can 
only be done by joining C[anning]. 

'' Well, even my not being in office is making the 
devil's own mischief Where am I to sit ? [illegible'^s 
place, or Pitt's old hill fort ? or where ? How am I to 
communicate with C[anning] ? Besides, the Tories 
don't believe me with C, and are trying to trap me by 
motions. Nice, to be sure, had any man such a 
singular, not to say absurd power over a Govt, as I 
shall have. Lord L[ansdowne], D. of Devonshire, &c., 
all take place protesting against my exclusion, and 
swearing they only submit to it while I do. Scarlett 
A[ttorney] G[eneral], but Eldon went off in a head- 
ache to escape swearing him in. . . . 

"H. B." 



Edward Ellice, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Brooks's [no date]. 

". . . Be assured Bruffam will bolt! He is very 
sore at Scarlett's appointment, with all his profes- 
sions of disinterestedness, and no wonder ! He says 
support of an ' hon. and learned member opposite ' is 



458 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

not quite the same thing as that of 'my hon. and 
learned friend near me ; ' and that his exclusion will 
shut his mouth. This is all as 1 expected. We shall 
see strange confusion and quarrelling in the end. 
Lord Grey has shut his door upon Taff., and if they 
don't take care, will lead the new Govt. — with or with- 
out Ld. Lansdowne — a pretty dance in the Lords. . . . 
I envy none of them the legacy the Tories have left 
their successors. They have drained the cup of good 
things to the dregs, and left many a bitter draught 
for those that follow them. . . . The fellow can't wait 
for the letters, and indeed I could only add some lies 
of the day. 

" Yours, 

"E. E." 



Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Denbies, May 6th, 1827. 

"... 1 am almost sick at what is passing. The 
scene in the House is to my mind so strange that I 
know not where I am. I keep my old place. What is 
to be concocted for the general good I cannot conjec- 
ture . . . Brooks's rings with the praises of Canning — 
how well he does — how ill the Sovereign is, and how 
improperly Canning has been dealt with. Canning has 
dissected both Whigs and Tories ; and I profess, if 1 
was to swear fealty, I should be more inclined to 
swear it to him than to Lansdowne and Co. Darling- 
ton raves about I the new Premier. The Catholic 
Question is only safe by being postponed, he thinks. 
)uncannon now counts noses on the other side, and 
sits on the Treasury Bench. I can say for myself that 
not much of decent respect has been shown to me. I 
have supported the Whigs for eight and thirty years 
at an expense of above ;^30,ooo. My house and table 
have been the resort of the party, and on their account, 
partly, the King has got rid of me. To the astonish- 
ment of many, not a sj^lable has ever been mentioned 
to me." 




THE THIRD MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE. 

[To face p. 458. 



1827.] COALITION. 459 

Lord Althorp to Mr. Creevey. 

"Albany, May 11, 1827. 

". . . It is impossible for me not to write to you 
and say how much gratified I am at finding the line 
which I have taken approved of by all those with 
whom I first began my political life, which was in 
1809, on the Duke of York's business. It is impossible 
for me to put any confidence in Canning, but I must 
support him as the least of two evils. Lord Lans- 
downe and those who, like him, take office or identify 
themselves with the administration, appear to me to 
have more courage than discretion ; and I think they 
would have done better to have acted with more 
caution. But the thing being done, we have only to 
choose between the two parties, and the line it is our 
duty to take is plain enough at present. ... I much 
fear that His Majesty will be indulged in every sort of 
extravagance in order to win him over." 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

" London, 28th May, 1827. 

" You are indeed a benighted, rural politician, and 
your letter is truly a provincial reverie. I do say the 
junction is justified by the exclusion of Eldon, Wel- 
lington, Peel and Bathurst It could have been 
brought about by no other means, and I consider it as 
an immense benefit conferred on the country. ... As 
to the ' baseness of the junction,' and the rest of your 
apple-blossom twaddle, I really thought at first, Mr. 
Secretary of the Board of Controul, that you were 
alluding to the blasted, disgraceful coalition of Fox 
and the pure, highminded Grey with old Bogy.* 
There, indeed, was a sacrifice of every principle upon 
earth for place. I don't stand up for Canning, but 
I think the junction with him is a chance for the 
country against nothing. Don't forget that Grey, 
whose opposition is solely personal, once preferred 
him to Whitbread. He had, as you well know, the 
choice between them. ... I don't care a damn — nor 
do you — for the Catholics ; but I say their chance is a 

* Lord Grenville. 



46o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

hundredfold better under the new Cabinet than under 
the old ; and so do they. . . . Depend upon it that 
horticultural pursuits damage a male's understanding. 
I am delighted, therefore, that you are once more 
coming into the civilised world, where I trust you 
will, with proper care, come to your senses." 



Mr. Creevey to the Earl of Sefton. 

"Rivenhall Place, May 31st, 1827. 

" Vous vous trompez, mon cher, when you say Lord 
Grey ever voted for Canning in preference to Whit- 
bread. At the period to which you refer, he was the 
only one who voted for Whitbread against Canning, 
and he did so under strong circumstances as affecting 
Whitbread. You are aware of the half kind of hostility 
that existed between Whitbread and Grey from the 
time of the latter taking office in 1806, and one act in 
particular of Whitbread's made Grey furious. When 
Prinney became Regent, the Whigs and Grenvilles 
thought the game was all their own again, and in cast- 
ing the parts for the new administration, Whitbread 
was to be Secj^. of State for the Colonies ; but, before 
he wd. touch it, he made it a sine qua non that Ld. 
Grenville, as First Lord, should not be Auditor like- 
wise — a proposition, I say, that made Grey furious, as 
an injustice to Grenville, and a reflection upon their 
former Government ; but as nothing could shake Whit- 
bread, the proposition was laid before Grenville, who, 
greatly to his honor, wrote a letter in which, tho' he 
arraigned very freely what he thought the injustice of 
the demand, still he thought so highly of Whitbread's 
services, that he struck rather than not have them, 
Well, all this, as you know, ended in smoke; but 
shortly after (upon Perceval's death, I believe) when 
the game was again in view, the question arose 
whether Canning or Whitbread was to be adopted. 
Grey voted for Whitbread, in spite of all the provo- 
cation he had given him, upon the express ground of 
having confidence in his character, which he had not 
in Canning's. You are right, therefore, when you say 
that Grey's objection to Canning is personal, tho' not 
entirely so. If such personal objection was well 



l827.] CREEVEY'S OBJECTIONS. 461 

founded then, as I think it was, surely it is much 
stronger now, after Canning's leaving his Govt, in the 
lurch as he did upon the Queen's trial, and his late 
lies at the expense of his colleagues and Castlereagh, 
in setting up for the sole deliverer of the new world. 
All these tricks are of the same school, and make a 
personal objection to him which I have never known 
apply to any public man before. 

" What you say of coalitions generally, is true— 
they are all had, and all popular principles are sure to 
be sacrificed in such a mess. When Brougham wrote 
and asked me what I thought of this concern, I replied 
that I had an instinctive horror of the very name of a 
coalition ; and yet, with all the sins of the last one in 
1806, it surely is not to be compared in its design and 
formation with this one. Fox and Grenville had been 
acting openly together in opposition. When Pitt got 
the Govt, in 1804, he could not induce Grenville to 
accept office and leave Fox. When Pitt died, and old 
Nobbs* sent for Grenville to make the Govt, the 
latter would not listen to any prejudice against Fox, 
but made thejCrown divide the Govt, between them. 
Now surely to see Whigs thrusting themselves tail 
foremost into Canning's pay as subalterns, is, at least, 
a very low-lived concern as compared with the last 
coalition. ... I say both upon public and personal 
grounds, I never would identify myself with Canning. 
... I should like no better fun than backing the 
renegado Canning every night against the Tory High- 
flyers, but as to trusting myself in the same boat with 
him, and, above all, taking his money — you'll excuse 
me!" 

Mrs. Taylor to Mr. Creevey. 

"June I, 1827. 

". . . Mr. Canning's weakness was pretty visible 
in the Penryn case.f Brougham was so very tipsy, 

• George III. 

t Gross bribery and corruption had been proved to prevail in the 
little Cornish borough of Penryn, which returned two members. Lord 
John Russell's motion that it be disfranchised was opposed by the 
Government, and defeated by 124 votes to 69. 



462 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

that for some time after he got up to speak he did not 
know what he said, and neither Tierney, Macdonald 
nor Abercromb}^ were in the House. Little Sir T. 
T[yrwhitt] has just come in to tell me he was this 
moment passed in the street by Mr. Lambton in a 
travelling carriage alone ; so that he is come up to see 
if peerages are plenty ! " 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"London, June nth. 

". . . Lambton has called upon Knighton and told 
him to tell the King that the moment he heard at 
Naples of the shameful way in which he [the King] 
had been treated by his servants, he had travelled 
night and day to serve him ; in consequence of which, 
he is to dine and sleep one day this week at the Cottage 
after Ascot. This comes from Ly. C. to her brother 
Denison. . . . Then Brougham is so anxious about 
dear Mrs. Brougham that he has consulted Knighton 
about her case, who is so good as to see her daily. 
Was there ever?* ..." 

"June 15th. 
". , . It is said that Lambton owes upwards of 
;^900,ooo, and has little or no profit from his coal 
trade to help him out of the mess. . . . The Duke of 
St. Albans is to be married to Mother Coutts on Satur- 
day. She gives him ;^30,ooo as an outfit — the rest to 
depend on his good behaviour. . . . Chickens are 15/- 
a couple, Mrs. Taylor tells me ; but what do you think 
of cock's-combs being 22/- a pound, and it takes a 
pound and a half to make a dish ! " 

"Brooks's, 19th. 

". . . In my walk here I met Althorp . . . and 
asked him how things were going on. — 'Very bad,' 
says he. — 'What an odd thing,' says I, 'that Robinson f 
should turn out so wretched in the Lords.' — 'Yes,' says 

* Sir William Knighton being the King's physician and confidential 
adviser on many things besides his health. 

t Mr. J. Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1823-27, had been 
made Visgovjnt Goderich, and became Colonial and War Secretary. 



i827.] WELLINGTON AND GREY. 4^3 

he, ' and what is worse, Lansdowne is very little better, 
so that Grey, acting the part he does, cuts him to 
atoms.' — * Do you suppose,' says I, ' it was the question 
of com that made the great Opposition in the Lords ? ' 
— ' No,' says he, ' it was the question of Canning, and 
only that ; for you know no one can have any con- 
fidence in him.'" 

"June 20. 

". . . You see the buttering speech Bruffam has 
been making at Liverpool in favor of Canning, to say 
nothing of his lies about his having refused a silk 
gown from Eldon, and saying that the latter had 
always behaved so imll to him ! . . . Sefton said to 
Mrs. Taylor yesterday at dinner : — ' Well, Mrs. Taylor, 
what is your opinion of Brougham noiv ? ' — ' Why,' 
says she, 'exactly what yours used to be, Ld. Sefton, 
the worst possible.' " 

"June 23. 

"... I sallied forth yesterday for a walk before 
dinner, and who shd. I see but Wellington coming out 
of Arbuthnot's house in Parliament Street — his horses 
following him. So thinks I to myself — what line will 
he take ? which was soon decided by his coming up 
and shaking me by the hand. I said — * Curious times 
these, Duke ! ' and then, by way of putting him at his 
ease and encouraging him to talk, I added — 'I am 
what they call a Malignant : I am all for Ld. Grey. I 
have this moment left him, telling him my only fear 
was his becoming too much of a Tory.' . . . Turning 
me round by main force and putting his arm thro' 
mine, he walked me off with him to the House of 
Lords. — 'There is no chance,' said he, 'of Ld. Grey 
being too much of a Tory ; but you are quite right, 
and you may tell him from me that, so long as he 
keeps his present position, unconnected with either 
party, he has a power in the country that no other 
mdividual ever had before him.' 

"Then he fell upon Canning without stint or mercy 
— said it was impossible for any one to act with him, 
and that his temper was quite sure to blow him up. 
He said a part of his (Wellington's) correspondence 



4^4 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

had been withheld; that when he found that his 
amendment to the Corn Bill, if carried, wd. be fatal to 
the Bill, he wrote to Huskisson saying he was willing 
to come to any arrangement so as to prevent that; 
but Canning, thinking that he should beat him in the 
Lords, would not let Huskisson listen to such a pro- 
posal. ... In short, you never heard a fellow belabour 
another more compleatly cott amove than the Beau did 
Beelzebub — every now and then stopping and nearly 
pulling the button off my coat from his animation. I 
am only provoked that I omitted asking him whether 
he recollected a conversation of ours one day after 
dinner at his house at Cambray, in which I did my 
best in describing the perfidious character of Canning, 
but he would not touch it. . . . 

"You will be glad to hear that our impertinent 
Whigs have been disappointed in their expectation of 
Darlington claiming his seat from Ld. Howick. Grey 
told me he waited upon Darlington and tendered his 
son's resignation, as a nlatter perfectly of course from 
the line he (Grey) had taken, as well as his son ; but 
Ld. Darlington wd. not listen to the thing, and said he 
should take it as a personal favor never to have the 
subject mentioned again. It is very creditable to the 
Duke of Cleveland (that would be) to keep up his con- 
nection with a man that is such an infernal stumbling- 
block in the way of all their honors." * 

" Low Gosforth, gth August. 

"Well — I suppose Canning is dead long before 
this,t and so goes another man killed by publick life. 
His constitution, it is true, was not a good one, but 
the knock-down blow has been his possession of 
supreme power, his means of getting it and the per- 
sonal abuse it brought down upon his head. And 
now, what comes next ? As far as the present Cabinet 
is concerned, I should think they would willingly 
consent to Lansdowne succeeding Canning ; but what 
says George 4th to this ? Again, if such was the case, 

* Lord Darlington had to wait six years for his dukedom. Lord 
Howick sat for one of Darlington's seats in Winchelsea. 
t About twenty-four hours. 




GEORGE CANNING. 



\To face p. 464. 



I 



i 



1 



i827.] DEATH OF CANNING. 465 

Brougham must lead the House of Commons as a 
Cabinet Minister, and what would the King and the 
Church and the Tories say to that ? " 

In perusing the correspondence of such a voluble 
gossip as Creevey, one pauses occasionally to wonder 
whether his information is as trustworthy as it is 
varied and lively. The following extract, describing 
the position of the Duke of Wellington in regard to 
the Command-in-chief of the Army, and his corre- 
spondence with the King on the subject, would not be 
worth printing except as a test of Creevey's accuracy. 
Taken as such, it is satisfactory to find that nothing 
could be closer to the facts of the case, The corre- 
spondence referred to is printed at length in Welling- 
ton's Civil Despatches, iv. 2,7. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord, 

"Barningham Park [Mr. Mark Milbank's], Aug, 13. 

"... The Whigs, I think, are done. Snip Robinson,* 
you evidently see, is everything with Prinney, Only 
think of Petty t buckling to under him, and the vener- 
able Tierney too and old goose-rumped Carlisle.^ . . , 
I am happy to find that both these Kaby and Lowther 
tits talk very freely of Lord Lansdowne's degradation 
in having Lord Goodrich \_sic\ put over him. . . . No 
tidings of the Beau yet! but he must have his mare 
again,§ not only because everybody's language is that 
the Army is going to the devil under Palmerston,|| 
but Mrs. Taylor has told me of a correspondence 

* Viscount Goderich, who became Prime Minister on Canning's 
death. 

t Lord Lansdowne. 

X The 6th Earl of Carlisle. 

§ A saying current at the time, expressive of a man regaining his 
old position. 

II Viscount Palmerston was Secretary-at-War. 



466 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

between the King and the Beau upon this subject, 
which Grey told her the Duke had shown him. 

" It seems for some time after the Duke left the 
Horse Guards he called perpetually on Sir Herbert 
Taylor, and gave him his opinion and advice as to 
what was going on, and Ta3dor availed himself of one 
of his interviews with the King to express his great 
obligations to the Duke for his kind and useful counsel ; 
upon which the King wrote the Beau a letter at the 
beginning or end of which he called him his 'good 
friend ' ; * thanked him for all his kindness to Taylor, 
and urged him to retract his resignation. The Beau 
considered this as the tricky suggestion of Canning ; 
but, be it so or not. Grey represents his answer as 
perfect — regretting he should have been misunderstood 
— that his private honor would never permit him to 
retract, but his wish was always the same, to be of 
what use he could to the army. Since then, the King 
said to Lord Maryborough that the Duke of Welling- 
ton never comes to see him now, and upon the other 
saying he was sure it was only the apprehension of 
intruding that kept his brother away : — ' Oh no,' said 
the King, ' he knows very well I am always delighted 
to see him.'' Upon this being told the Duke, he made 
that last visit to Windsor, which made the jaw in 
the paper. So I can have no doubt, upon all these 
grounds, that his mare at least is certain, and then I 
think the noses of the old Click will be poking them- 
selves in one after another, till not a single Whig nose 
is left in the concern." 

" Barningham, Aug. 19th. 

" Yesterday I went out for the first time on horse- 
back in pursuit of prospects, and found about 3 miles 
off upon the high road a perfect one — a single high- 
arched bridge of great elevation, springing from rocks 
considerably above the level of the Tees, which comes 
rumbling down with great majesty over a rocky bed 
with trees on both sides. Standing on the bridge, the 
view closes on one side with an abbey ruin of Edward 

* The letter begins " My dear Friend," and ends " Ever yoiir 
sincere Friend, G. R." [Wellington's Civil Despatches, iv. 37], j 



i827.] GREY AND BROUGHAM. 4^7 

3rd's time, and the other with Rokeby, celebrated, you 
know, by Sir Walter Scott. The bridge was built 
by Morritt, the present owner of Rokeby. ... At 
dinner our company was the said Morritt and his two 
nieces." 



Earl Grey to Mr. Creevcy. 

" Lyneham, 21st August. 

"... I had a very curious letter from Brougham 
the other day, presuming that Canning's death would 
remove the obstacle which before existed to my 
supporting the Government. He tells me that he had 
given an assurance of his support to whoever might 
be the leader of the H. of C, feeling it to be essential 
to the maintenance of a ministry, whose principles, as 
far as they go, he approves ; that he has refused an}^ 
political situation, which had been pressed upon him by 
Canning ; and, being excluded b}'^ the personal objec- 
tions of the King from any other situation in his pro- 
fession, he must remain as a supporter of the Govt, 
in his hill-fort : that his support of Govt, is quite 
disinterested, having received nothing but slights, 
which had injured him in his profession; that he 
had asked only that the legal promotions shd. be sus- 
pended for a year : that Cross being put over his head, 
and the appointment of the other King's Counsels, 
had hurt him in the Circuit. 1 shortly answered him 
that the differences of the last session were the more 
unfortunate as not being likely soon to be removed ; 
that I wished only to explain that my objections were 
not merely personal to Canning, but that they applied 
principally to the manner in which the Government 
was composed ; that in this respect they were rather 
increased than diminished by all I had hitherto learnt 
of the present changes, and that I must remain in my 
former position, unconnected with any party, and 
supporting or opposing as the measures of the Govt, 
might be accordant or at variance with my principles 
and opinions." 



468, THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Aug. 24. 

" I am very sorry I did not ask Morritt for a copy 
of his work on the situation of ancient Troy. You 
must know that he has a brother, one of the hugest 
great fat men you ever saw ; and as the elder brother 
is called 'Troy' Morritt, the other goes by the name 
of ' Avoirdupois ' Morritt. Damned fair for the pro- 
vinces ! 

". . . The perfidy of the Arch-fiend* to Lambton! 
. . . He gave Powlett a history of the peerage as told 
by Lambton himself to Brougham. Says Lambton :— • 
* I directed my auditor to wait upon Ld. Lansdowne, 
and to make that claim which I thought I had a per- 
fect right to, of being made a peer. But Stephenson 
refused to execute this commission.' — 'When,' said 
Brougham [to Powlett], * Lambton opened the case 
and his claims to me, I thought it but fair to give him 
my honest opinion that he had none — that he had only 
his own seat in Parliament — that he took little or no 
part in debates, and that, in short, his claim was wholly 
untenable.' Now whether all or any or what part of 
all this is fiction, I know not ; but was there ever such 
a perfidious monster as this Bruffam, or such an 
insolent jackanapes as this Lambton. The latter, I 
flatter myself, is diddled, tho' he did return from Paris 
to be present, with myself, at Canning's funeral. I was 
rather ashamed to see my name upon such an occasion 
and in such a crew.f 

"Well now, tho' somewhat late, my Portuguese 
Marshal — Lord Beresford — came to dinner on Sunday, 
and was off before breakfast yesterday [Thursday], 
I can safely say that in my life I never took so strong 
a prejudice against a man. Such a low-looking ruffian 
in his air, with damned bad manners, or rather none 
at all, and a vulgarity in his expressions and pro- 
nunciation that made me at once believe he was as 
ignorant, stupid and illiterate as he was ill-looking. 
Yet somehow or other he almost wiped away all these 

* Brougham. 

t Mr. Creevey was not at the funeral, though reported to be so in 
the papers. 



iS27.] LOWTHER CASTLE. 4^9 

notches before we parted. In the first place, it is 
with me an invaluable property in any man to have 
him call a spade a spade. The higher he is in station 
the more rare and the more entertaining it is. Then 
1 defy any human being to find out that he is either a 
marshal or a lord ; but you do find out that he has 
been in every part of the world, and in all the interest- 
ing scenes of it for the last five and thirty years. . . . 
The history of these two Beresfords is really interest- 
ing. They are natural sons of old Lord Waterford,* 
and were sent over in their infancy to a school at 
Catterick Bridge under the names of John Poo [Poer ?] 
(the Admiral) and William Carr (the Marshal), and they 
kept these names till they were about 12 years old. . . . 
They are still in ignorance of who their mother was, 
or whether they had the same ; but from the secrec}'" 
upon this head, from their being sent from Ireland, 
and, above all, from Lady Waterford having seemed 
always to shew more affection to them than to her 
own children, there is a notion they were hers before 
her marriage." 

" Lowther Castle, Aug. 27th. 

"... More perfect civility and politeness was 
never shown by man to man than by the Earl [of 
Lonsdale] to myself from the moment I entered the 
house ; and, give me leave to say, for rather a feeble 
artist and one who was dressed in a star and garter 
and a blue ribbon, he was very agreeable. But dear 
Lady Lonsdale is the girl for my money, being either 
half-witted or half-cracked, and she and I are one. . . . 
This place as a casile is a palpable failure compared 
with Raby or Brancepeth, but the park is most beauti- 
ful . . ." 

" 28th. 

"... Take a specimen of my lord's turn for story- 
telling. I was going it at breakfast just now with 
considerable success in the * Nanny goat't line; so 
my lord in his turn said : — ' You have heard of Mr. 

* The 2nd Earl of Tyrone and ist Marquess of Waterford, 
t Anecdote. 



470 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

Fitzgerald, who was called the Fighting Fitzgerald, 
whom I used to see a good deal of at Lord West- 
morland's. There was a man who bet a wager he 
would insult him ; so, going very near him in a coffee- 
house, he said — " I smell an Irishman ! " to which the 
other replied — "You shall never smell another!" and, 
taking up a knife, cut off his nose.' " 



" Hartlepool [a house of Lord Darlington's], Sept. 9th. 

", . . Lansdowne has now compleated his own 
destruction by letting Prinney and Robinson force 
Herries * down his throat. . . . What a treasure on 
such a rainy day to have one's Decline and Fall with 
one. I really think it is a great business for such a 
lazy devil as myself to have read every word of it. I 
except no book when I say no single author supplies 
one with such useful or such general matter. Damn 
his zvi'iting, but his shtff'is invaluable." 



" Doncaster, Sept. 18. 

". . , Soon after our arrival I went out, and the 
first group of men I fell into was Ld. Jersey, Ld. 
Wilton, Bob Grosvenor, &c,, &c., which soon ended 
in a tete-a-tete between Wilton and me, in which I 
regretted that Edward Stanley had taken a place so 
inferior, as I thought, to the claims and position of his 
house.! He made the onl}^ defence that could be 
made — Edward's love of business, and it was merel}' 
a beginning. Then he stated of the Government 
generally : — ' It is a crazy concern altogether. The 
King is in ecstacies at having carried his point about 
Herries, and will have all his own way for the future. 
The Whigs have moved heaven and earth to get Ld. 
Holland into the Foreign Office, but the King would 
not hear of it. . . .'" 

* The Right Hon. J. C. Herries, who became Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. 

t Afterwards 14th Earl of Derb5^ He had been appointed Under- 
Secretary for the Colonies, Huskisson being Colonial and War 
Secretary. 



1S27.] THE GODERICH MINISTRY. 471 

" Doncasterj Sept. 20. 

". . . You must know our steward, the Duke of 
Devonshire, started the first day [of the races] with 
his coach and six and twelve outriders, and old Bill}'^ 
Fitzwilliam * had just the same ; but the next day old 
Billy appeared with hvo coaches and six, and sixteen 
outriders, and has kept the thing up ever since. . . ." 

" Wentworth House [Earl Fitzwilliam's], 23rd Sept. 

". . . Well, have you read our Bruffam's letters to 
Lord Grey with all the attention they deserve ? and 
was there ever such a barefaced villain, and so vain a 
wretch and fool too? I wish you could see the veins 
of Lord Grey's forehead swell and hear his snorting 
at Brougham's demand for justice to his pure dis- 
interested motives. . . . The judicial situation he re- 
fused was Chief Baron of the Exchequer. . . , Lord 
Rosslyn told me that Brougham in a letter telling him 
of this offer said: — ' It was made me by Canning just 
before his death, and, as I believe, with no other view 
than that of getting rid of me.' ... I told you what 
Lord Wilton said to me about Holland. Grey says all 
the Cabinet agreed to it but cher Bexley, alias Mouldy ; 
but the King when it was proposed to him said he 
would have no Minister who had insulted all the 
crowned heads of Europe. Lord Cowper, who as 
well as Lady Cowper and her daughter are staying 
here, tells me Alvanley says ' Goodrich will cry him- 
self out of office.' Cowper and Milton, who are quite 
against Grey and us malignants (including Milton's 
father), state the utter impossibility of such a feeble 
artist remaining where he is. . . . Princess Lieven 
says I must be writing a political pamphlet, and Mrs. 
Taylor is pleased to tell her who it is to, and that I 
do the same every day. . . ." 

Deeper and deeper grew Creevey's distrust of his 
ancient ally Brougham ; wider and ever wider yawned 
the chasm between the old Whig Guard, represented 
for the nonce by Lord Grey, and those very men who, 

* The 4th Earl Fitzwilliam. 

2 K 



472 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

under Grey's leadership, were ultimately to effect the 
profound, though bloodless, revolution of 1832. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Wentworth, Sept. 24. 
". . . Another instance of our Bruflfam's hypocrisy. 
Wm. Powlett (I beg pardon, Lord William Powlett) * 
said to me : — ' Brougham is very sore at your not 
having called upon him during your stay at Lowther. 
My father shewed me a letter from him in which he 
said — "I cannot but feel greatly hurt that, after the 
long and intimate connection between Creevey and me, 
he should have been at Lowther, and never come to 
see me." ' Now was there ever such a canting, mis- 
chievous fellow ? He has done all he could to injure 
me — has washed his hands of me in every way — he 
knows I could not come to him — he knows that, if I 
could have done so, he was not at home. He does not 
care one damn if I was at the bottom of the sea — most 
probably would rather I was there than not — and yet, 
for some base purpose of his own — gets up this scene 
of lying sentiment ; to Darlington, too, of all men. . . . 
At dinner I heard Princess Lieven say to Lord Fitz- 
william : — ' Your house, my lord, or your palace, I 
should rather say, is the finest 1 have seen in England. 
It is both beautiful and magnificent.' — To which old 
Billy replied — ' It is indeed.' She then proceeded : — 
' When foreigners have applied to me heretofore for 
information as to the houses best worth seeing in 
England, I have sent them to Stowe and Blenheim ; 
but in future I shall tell them to go down to Went- 
worth.' The last compliment was received by old 
Billy in solemn silence ! not an atom of reply ! " 

" Stapleton, Sept. 28th. 

". . . What a comfortable house this is, and how 
capitally * dear Eddard ' f lives. . . . What a fool this 
good-natured Eddard is to be eat and drunk out of 
house and harbour, and to be treated as he is. The 

* Second son of Lord Darlington, who was about to be raised to 
the dignity of a Marquess on 5th October. Lord William afterwards 
became 3rd Duke of Cleveland. 

■j" Hon. Robert Edward Petre, third son of the 9th Lord Petre- 



i827.] PARTY POLITICS IN THE NORTH. 473 

men take his carriages and horses to carry them to 
their shooting ground, and leave his fat mother to 
waddle on foot, tho' she can scarcely get ten yards. 
Then dinner being announced always for seven, the 
men neither night have been home before 8, and it 
has been -} to 9 that Dow. Julia* and her ladies have 
been permitted to dine. Then these impertinent jades, 
the Ladies Ashley, breakfast upstairs, never shew till 
dinner, and even then have been sent to and waited 
for. . . . Dow. Julia makes one eternally split with her 
voice and her words and her criticism upon every- 
body. She is always at it and always right, and a 
good honest soul as ever was. ..." 

" Raby Castle, Oct. 4th. 
". . . Lord Londonderry is so disliked and despised 
in his own country that it has been injurious to the 
Beau to be shewn off by him.f . . . The Duke is 
Commander-in-chief and identifying himself with the 
Old Tories, and the Bishop of Durham gave him a 
dinner yesterday that has made the Marquess of Cleve- 
land J shake in his shoes. He, tho' Lord-lieutenant, 
would not accept the Bishop's invitation to meet the 
Duke of Wellington, and we had quite a scene be- 
tween him and Lord William two days ago about the 
latter going. However he was quite firm, and said 
nothing should prevent him, as member for the county, 
accepting the invitation. All this on Cleveland's part 
was dirty toadying of the King and Governt, saying 
this was an opposition Tory visit of Wellington's to 
the north. . . . The Marchioness would have liked 
the fame of having the Beau here, and he had promised 
Lady Caroline to come if he zvas asked; but Niffy 
Naffy did not dare." 

* Juliana, daughter of Henry Howard of GIossop, and second wife 
of the 9th Lord Petre. 

t The Duke of Wellington had been paying a visit! to Wynyard. 
Lord Londonderry (3rd Marquess) was the Duke's Adjutant General 
in the Peninsula. Despite the Duke's distrust of him, he continued 
to address him in correspondence as " My dear Charles," until their 
final rupture over the Corn Laws in 1846, when the Duke's letters 
begin " My dear Lord Londonderry." 

. X Lord Darlington's patent of marquess is of the s^me date as this 
letter. 



474 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

" Oct. 6th. 

". , . It should be a rule in coming to this house 
not to exceed 3 days, when the party is purel}^ domestic, 
because the artificial situation of the Marchioness 
becomes much more striking. The delusion can't 
last : it becomes low comedy — low life above stairs. 
The scenes are magnificent, the dresses superb, but 
still it is the part of the Marchioness of Cleveland by 
Miss Tidswell. . . . The Marquis himself, too, is quite 
a diff"erent man from when 1 was last here. He is 
always civil, but there is no spring in him, one might 
almost say no utterance. He seems absorbed in 
thought and by no means happy. We had, to be sure, 
a little conversation last night, when he was kind 
enough to admit Mrs. Taylor and myself to an in- 
spection of a new pattern for his livery buttons ! . . , 
Good God! how 1 write. I mean so badly. It is 
now after dinner ; I am sure I am not drunk, but the 
pens are the very devil. . . . Lord Charles Somerset 
complains that he could not sleep either of the three 
nights at Wynyard, never having slept before in 
camhrick sheets, and that the Brussels lace with which 
the pillows were trimmed tickled his face so he had 
not a moment's peace. . . . Grey says he would not 
dress Lady Londonderry for ^^5000 a year : her hand- 
kerchiefs cost 50 guineas the dozen ; the furniture of 
her boudoir cost ;^30oo. Alnwick Castle is the place 
for real comfort ! You ladies are handed out to 
breakfast, as well as at dinner; and, that entertain- 
ment over, the sexes are separated as at a cathedral ; 
so much so that Tankerville was arrested by the coat- 
flap for attempting to invade the seraglio. Cornwall, 
a London flash, was there lately, and was so bored 
that, having consented to be one of the Duke's male 
riding party (for here again the sexes are kept 
separate) he hid himself; but in an unguarded moment 
looked out of the window to enjoy their being off 
without him ; when the Duke, looking back, saw him, 
and they returned and took him." 

" Hovvick, Oct. 14th. 

'\ . . Grey read me a letter he had yesterday from 
Lady Jersey from Euston. . . . She represents her 



1827.] THE AFFAIR OF NAVARINO. 475 

host, the Duke of Grafton, and the visitors, Lord John 
Russell, &c., as hanging very loose indeed by poor 
Snip* and the Government. Grey says nothing 
annoys Brougham so much as not being able to make 
any impression upon Lady Jersey. . . . She is as firm 
as a rock to Grey and the Beau. Grey's creed is that 
Brougham must bloiv up: that he is in so many people's 
power with his lies of different kinds, that one fine 
da}^ the}^ will be out." 



Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey. 

" Hovvick, Oct. 20th. 

" I had a letter this morning from good old Fitz- 
william. Brougham had been at Wentworth uninvited, 
and evidently for the purpose either of making recruits, 
or of holding out the appearance of his being well in 
that quarter — probably both. Fitzwilliam smoked him, 
and took care that he should not go away deceived as 
to his opinions, which are exactly what you would 
have expected from a good honest Whig — in good 
times. . . . Circulars are sent from the Foreign OfBce 
to all people connected with the Government for sub- 
scriptions to Canning's monument. I wish you would 
write an inscription for it ! " 

The struggle maintained by the Greeks against the 
Ottoman power came to a crisis in the autumn of this 
year. On 6th May the Greek army under Karaiskaki 
was cut to pieces near Athens ; the Acropolis was 
bombarded at intervals till the garrison capitulated on 
2nd June, and the utter subjugation of Greece by the 
Turks was imminent, when Great Britain, France, and 
Russia interposed to preserve her independence and 
presented their ultimatum to the Porte, which suc- 
ceeded in protracting the negociations till the end of 
September. Meanwhile the Turkish general Ibrahim 
was devastating parts of Greece with circumstances 

* Lord Goderich, the Prime Minister. 



476 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XVIII. 

of the utmost barbarity. The British and French 
admirals, perceiving in this a breach of the armistice 
which the Porte had conceded, proceeded to destroy 
almost the whole Turkish fleet in the Bay of Navarino ; 
an act which was vigorously denounced by the Oppo- 
sition in the British Parliament. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Low Gosforth, Nov. 14th. 

". . . Well ! so the magnanimous Allies have really 
destroyed the Turkish fleet, and a more rascally act 
was never committed by the great nations, nor upon 
more false and hypocritical pretences. But the con- 
sequences ! the consequences ! Keep your eye on 
them, my dear! . . . Altho' Viscount Dudley and 
Ward* may have some personal objections to his 
head being placed on Temple Bar without the rest 
of his body, that is the proper position for it, or that 
of any English Ministers who by this act have opened 
the East and West to French and Russian ambition 
and villainy. ... I take a much more extensive view 
of this Turkish business than my brother statesman 
Earl Grey does. We long-sighted, old politicians, my 
dear, see a fixed intention on the part of Russia to 
make Constantinople a seat of her power, and to 
re-establish the Greek Church upon the ruins of 
Mahometanism — a new crusade, in short, by a new 
and enormous power, brought into the field by our 
own selves, and that may put our existence at stake to 
drive out again." 

Time brings its revenges, and we have lived to see 
the Liberal party adopt and express different views 
to these about "the unspeakable Turk." Yet it is 
opinion, and not the method of the Turk, that has 
changed. 

* Foreign Secretary. 



( 477 ) 



CHAPTER XIX. 

1827-1828. 

The fusion of a section of the Whigs with the Can- 
ningite Ministry wrought confusion in the groups 
composing both the original parties. The Old Tories, 
headed by Eldon, Londonderry, and the Duke of Rut- 
land, stood disdainfully aloof, waiting an opportunity 
for effective flank attack. The Duke of Wellington, 
hitherto closely identified with that section of the 
Ministerialists, had resumed his old post at the Horse 
Guards, after laboriously explaining that his quarrel 
with Canning had not been the cause of his resignation 
of his military command, and that his resumption of 
the same was not in consequence of Canning's death. 
But there was no whisper of his re-entering the 
Cabinet under Goderich, whom all men regarded as 
a minister /»oz/r rire; everything pointed to a political 
rapprochement (there is no equivalent English term) 
between Wellington and Grey. Meanwhile, if the 
ranks of the Tories were seamed by dissension, not 
less estranged were the Whigs among themselves. 
The " Malignants," few in number, held apart with 
Lord Grey. They were drawn from every section of 
the old Opposition — that haughty old Whig, Earl 
Fitzwilliam, stood shoulder to shoulder with Thomas 



478 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

Creevey, representative of the extinct " Mountain " of 
the Regency days. Nothing could exceed the bitterness 
which had sprung up between these Malignants and 
the rest of their party, nor the violence with which 
among themselves they denounced their ancient col- 
leagues, whether those who had already accepted 
office, like Lord Lansdowne, or those who openly 
coveted office, like Lord Holland, or those who were 
suspected of secretly intriguing for office, like Henry 
Brougham. So intense was party feeling that it 
strained, and in many cases severed, friendships of 
long standing. Creevey never had a heartier ally 
than Lord Sefton ; from the day, five and twenty years 
l^efore, that he first entered Parliament as an obscure 
individual known to nobody, Sefton had befriended 
him, co-operated with him on the "Mountain," and 
caused him to regard Croxteth, Stoke, and Arlington 
Street as always open to him. Sefton had given his 
adhesion to the Coalition Cabinet; this was enough 
to fire Creevey's indignation, and there ensued some 
months of estrangement in consequence. That, how- 
ever, was soon put right by the warm-hearted Sefton, 
who would suffer no difi'erence of opinion on public 
affairs to poison the springs of private friendship. He 
insisted upon Creevey returning to Croxteth, and 
crushed out all suspicion by his irresistible good 
humour. 

It was very different with Brougham. Closely as 
Creevey had been associated with him in the past, 
and profoundly as he admired his talents, it is clear 
that Brougham never succeeded in winning his conr 
fidence. He exhausts his vocabulary of vituperation 
— a pretty extensive one— in denouncing him at this 
crisis. 



1827-28.] RETURN TO CROXTETH. 4/9 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Croxteth, Wed., Nov. 21, 1S27. 

"My dearest Bessy, 

" Well, here you see me after all, and every- 
thing as right as ever it can be. I arrived here in a 
chay from Ormskirk yesterday between one and two, 
and as 1 pass'd the front of the house, was upon the 
lookout to see if there were any watchers at the 
windows. Lady Maria was at her bedroom one, and 
we had mutual salutations. Where my Lord had seen 
me from I don't know, but he was below at the hall 
door to receive me, and in the middle of very cordial 
handshaking said : — ' You old rogue ! I did not feel 
sure of your coming till I saw you.' I was then taken 
up to see the ladies, and nothing could be warmer 
than my reception was by each, and Lady Louisa said 
more than once or twice during the day — ' You don't 
know how happy you have made us all by coming.' 
So it's all mighty well. 

"As we were sitting cozing about the fire, Sefton 
said : — ' Well, Brougham is very angry with you for 
not coming to see him at Brougham.' — 'O,' said I, 'he 
is a neat artist. The affectionate, tender-hearted 
creature wrote a blubbering letter to Lord Darlington, 
saying how deeply hurt he was that such an old and 
attached friend as I was should have been so near him 
and never come to see him ; but,' I added, ' he never 
mentioned that he was not at home if 1 had done 
so.' ... A little after, one of the young ladies said — 
* We have seen a good deal of Mr. Brougham lately ; 
he went to the play with us 3 or 4 times, and you 
never saw such a figure as he was. He wears a black 
stock or collar, and it is so wide that you see a dirty 
coloured handkerchief under, tied tight round his neck. 
You never saw such an object, or anything half so 
dirty.' This is all that has passed hitherto respecting 
the Arch Fiend. . . . 

" I said to Sefton just now out a-shooting — who is 
Montron? — 'Why,' said he, 'he is a rotte who has no 
visible living and has one of the best houses going in 
Paris. He was employed very much by Talleyrand 
in his jobs and by Buonaparte likewise, and of course 



48o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

he is in very bad odour with the present Government of 
France; but he is a clever man and most entertaining.' 
I need not add he must be an infernal scoundrel, and 
to my mind he is the worst mannered man I ever saw. 
. . . We are expecting hourly a proper match for him 

in villainy, Henry de R . . . . He [Montron] is known 

to and has lived with all the world, but his polar star 
has been, and continues to be, Talleyrand. He married 
a Duchesse de Fleury, who was divorced from her 
husband on purpose ; but who afterwards left him to 
live with a painter. One of his most conspicuous 
stations was in the Court of the Princess Borghese, 
where he lived openly with her principal lady. I 
never heard anything equal to the depravity of 
Madame la Princesse, according to the stories Montron 
tells Sefton, and Montron stated himself as having 
been the minister to her pleasures in selecting lovers 
for her. It was for such like offices that the moralist 
Buonaparte whipped Master Montron into prison one 
fine day, and kept him there, saying he would put an 
end to the debauchery of his sister's establishment. 
So much for my new friend ! Is he not a neat one ? . . . 
I really think there is nothing going on by letter now 
between Sefton and Brougham, which is odd enough, 
after all that has passed ; but I feel certain Sefton 
would not conceal anything that was going on, and if 
he ever mentions Brougham, it is only to say how 
impossible it is for me to conceive the state of his 
film in all ways. . . . Poor Sefton ! he was quite au 
desespoir the night before last ; there had been so few 
pheasants that day at Kirby Ruff, his best cover. He 
was really speechless, except when he said it was the 
last time he ever should be there. In short, he might 
have lost half his estate at least. To think of the most 
successful man in life, and with the outside of every- 
thing the world can give, and he can't exist without 
excitement for every moment of the day ; whilst a 
pauper like myself can live upon idleness and jokes, 
without a blank day to annoy me. . . ." 

" Croxteth, Dec. 6th, 1837. 

"... I accompanied the shooters yesterday to 
their ground, about 7 miles off. The day was splendid 



1827-28.] RUMOURS OF WAR. 48 1 

— the sport brilliant — Sefton, his 3 sons, Berkeley 
Craven and Mr. McKenzie killing 141 pheasants, above 
100 hares, &c., &c. On coming home the night was 
so dark that my lord declared he could not see the 
road ; and so it turned out, for he overturned us. . . . 
We were not a mile from home, so we left the carriage 
and groped our way on foot. . . ." 



Em4 Grey to Mr. Creevey. 

"Howick, Dec. 13, 1827. 

"My dear Creevey, 

". . . Sefton's conduct can only be explained 
on the supposition that he feels himself bound not to 
abandon, in their difficulties, an administration which 
he originally promised to support ; but I do not think 
this feeling can prevail long against his own opinion 
and the increasing opinion of the publick. At present, 
according to all appearances, they will not be able to 
extricate themselves from this Turkish scrape. I have 
a letter to-day from Paris saying that the Russian 
army has crossed the Pruth, with the intention of 
permanently occupying the Principalities of Moldavia 
and Wallachia. This, in their diplomatick jargon, 
they say is not to be considered — any more than 
Navarin — as a measure of war, but as a moyen d'executer 
le traite de mediation. This is not very unlike the case 
of a man who should knock another down, and then 
say — ' I did not do it with an intention of hurting you, 
but only from the most friendly desire to keep you 
quiet' Whatever the explanation may be worth, of the 
fact I have no doubt, and as little that the Russians will 
not again abandon the possession of these countries. 
These [illegible], notwithstanding the gloss which it is 
endeavoured to put upon the measure, as well as a 
general apprehension of the increasing power of 
Russia, which has been quickened by her late successes 
in Persia, have already produced speculations on the 
necessity of a combination to resist her projects, and 
there seems no great improbability in supposing that 
the cannon fired at Navarin may prove the signal of 
another general war in Europe. The best chances 
against it are to be found in the general poverty of 



482 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

all the Great Powers. Austria can hardly find the 
means of moving an army ; we are no longer in a 
condition to give subsidies ; and even Russia, in the 
countries in which her armies will have to act, could 
not find immediately the means of defraying the cost 
of their maintenance in active service, and some 
compromise may thus be produced at the expense of 
the poor Turks who will be plundered both by friends 
and foes, and whose helpless imbecillity deprives them 
of all hopes of a successful resistance. This is the only 
way which I can at present foresee for the Ministers 
to escape from the difficulty which Mr. Canning's 
much-lauded policy has brought upon them, but which 
would require more energy, more skill, more union 
and more wisdom than I think likely to be found in 
our present Councils. 

" As to Brougham — I believe him to be mad. Our 
correspondence has ceased, but I have lately seen, 
under his own hand, things that would surprise even 
you . . . that Canning had no more to do with the 
treaty of the 6th of July than you or I, and that it was 
entirely the Duke of Wellington's . . . that there is a 
complaint of the King's unconstitutional interference 
with the patronage of the Ministers. If this should 
be proved to be so (the if is good) nobody wd. be 
more for resisting it than himself; and, if requisite, he 
should be glad to see a union of the respectable men 
of all parties, headed by Lord Grey, for that purpose. 
. . . All this I have seen actually in black and white 
— does it furnish a case to justify my suspicion of 
madness? 

"At the end comes out the true solution of the 
riddle. He is full of indignation at Phillimore's being 
put over Lushington's head, because the latter was 
counsel for the Queen. No thought of himself, of 
course ! nor any reference to his own situation, 
proving indisputably his claim to the acknowledg- 
ment of disinterestedness, which you may remember 
in his letter to me. . . . The Duchess of Northumber- 
land told Mrs. Grey the other day that about Navarin 
the King had said that the actor deserved a ribband, 
but the act a halter. A pleasant distinction for 
his My.'s Ministers ! Lansdowne, however, I hear 
is in favour ever since he submitted about Herries, 



1827-28.] LORD GREY'S SPECULATIONS. 483 

but that the King spoke neither to Tierney nor to 
Mcintosh at the Council when the latter was sworn in. 

" Ever yours, 

"Grey." 

" Howick, 15th Dec. 
". . . With the feelings of sincere regard and great 
liking that I have for Sefton, nothing can be more 
gratifying to me than the expression of correspond- 
ing feelings on his part : nor could anything give me 
more sincere pleasure than a visit from him here, 
more especially if you could meet him. Is there any 
chance of your coming? . . . You will see in the 
papers the reports of Lord Goodrich's resignation. 
. . . Will the King put the thing fairly into the hands 
of Lansdowne, allowing him to bring in some of the 
old Whigs ? or will he take it as the head of a Tory 
administration ? Or will Huskisson be the man, with 
all the load of unpopularity which weighs upon him ? 
or will the whole concern break up, and Peel and the 
Beau be called upon to form a new Government ? 
. . . Holland is the only person of whom I have heard 
that goes the whole length of defending the business 
of Navarin in all its parts, and that with a degree of 
violence that really surprises me. I can only con- 
sider him, therefore, as prepared to take anything or 
do anything to support the Government as it is. . , . 
I had heard of Dudley's love, and of the Countess 
St. Antonio's joke that he was become 'a Ward in 
Chancery.'* If the lady takes as much out of him 
as the Court usually does out of its suitors, I should 
think there would be little left of him at the meeting 
of Parliament." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Liverpool, Dec. 14, 1827. 

" I left Croxteth yesterday. . . . Sefton first gave 
me your letter, but his main object [in coming to my 
room] was to show me in the most perfect confidence a 
letter he received from Brougham this morning, en- 
closing one the latter had- received from Lambton at 

* The Earl of Dudley's family name being Ward. 



484 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

Paris, and as Sefton said when I had seen both letters, 
it would be for me to decide which was the greatest 
madman. The subject was Lambton's peerage^ which 
he (Lambton) contends should not be a simple barony, 
very properly observing that it is no promotion for 
the first commoner of England to be jnade the last 
baron ! But, in short, without seeing his letter with 
one's own eyes, its contents would be perfectly in- 
credible, and the result is his calling upon Brougham 
by all those ties of early disinterested friendship, 
which have bound them to each other for life, not to 
let him be less than an earl. . . . Brougham states 
in reply, or says he does so, that our friends in power 
are so jealous of any approach to them, that it is quite 
impossible to assist him; and then, in his comment 
upon Lambton's letter, loads him with every species 
of ridicule for his pretensions; till at length he 
gravely enters the field himself as a man of family 
at least two centuries older than that of Lambton, 
and as having the 2nd barony of England in his 
(Brougham's) own blood. Now really ! was there 
ever ? . . . Punch * writes there is not an individual 
in the city who does not consider our attack upon the 
Turkish fleet [at Navarino] as the greatest outrage 
ever committed by any Government or country, and 
above all — by ours. In speaking of Lord Goodrich 
he says he is considered by all as a mere nullity, 
and by no one more so than the King, and does what- 
ever he likes and cares for no one. Pretty well this 
from Mr. Clerk of the Council, is it not ? 

" Before these letters came Sefton had said to me : 
— * By God ! the Government can never stand ; this 
Navarino business must destroy them.' . . . Only 
think of there not being a syllable of politicks in 
Brougham's letter to him yesterday! I saw it all. 
My own belief is that Brougham is not the person 
to whom Sefton has bound himself, if in some un- 
guarded moment he has done so ; but I suspect it is 
Petty. He always speaks of Brougham as if he 
loathed him. My dispatch to Grey contains all the 
matter just stated, except about the Brougham and 
Lambton correspondence. . . ." 

* Charles Greville, 



1827-28.] SEFTON AND BROUGHAM. 485 

" Croxteth, Dec. 16. 

" Well, the Pet * was charmed that the rain had 
not stopt me, and so were the ladies, and all mightily 
pleased at breakfast with my description of Miss 
Creevey's drum t and supper. I did the company by 
helping them to stuffing out of the hare, to make up 
for the little I could get from the hare itself Then 
the day became quite fine and all was to be ready for 
shooting in half an hour. In a turn or two I had 
with Sefton on the terrace he said : — ' Well, I have 
written to Brougham by this post and have said to 
him — " I observe you never mention any politicks in 
your letter of yesterday ; from which 1 conclude, of 
course, you are ashamed to advert to our late nefari- 
ous attack upon the Turks. For myself I can fairly 
say I have gone as far as any man in my endeavours 
to prevent the return of the Tories to power ; but if 
I am expected to support the infernal outrage at 
Navarino, it is too high a price to pay for accomplish- 
ing my object, and 1 think it right to declare 1 will 
not do it. And now, as you have hitherto given me 
an explicit account of the part you meant to take when 
the Government was about to submit my measure to 
Parliament, I beg you will be as frank with me upon 
this occasion as 1 have been with you.'" . . . Sefton 
is to send me his answer, which one should think 
must be a dokiment of some interest. 

"Well but — to wind up my intercourse with the 
Pet : when the carriages were ready for the shooters 
in the stable yard, where they always embark, I went 
to be present on the occasion, and when Sefton came, 
who was the last, he said : — ' Creevey, I want to 
speak to you; 'and taking me into the Riding House 
he said:—' I can't let you go without telling you that 
McKenzie has proposed to Maria. It has happened 
just now.' I said I had seen quite enough to be sure 
it would come to that and added : — ' He is a man of 
fortune, is he not ? ' — ' I fancy so,' said Sefton, * but I 
know nothing about it. He seems a damned good 

* Lord Sefton. 

t Mr. Creevey had been the night before to a party at his sister's 
house in Liverpool, and driven out to Crojcteth to breakfast. 



486 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

kind of fellow and a particular friend of \illegible]' 
This was all, but it was quite enough to show it 
would do * ..." 

During the Cabinet crisis in January, 1828, following 
on Lord Goderich's resignation, Creevey was staying 
with his step-daughters in Essex, but was kept 
closely informed by Lord Sefton of every shifting 
phase of gossip. The letters were written daily, 
sometimes twice or thrice a day, but the interest of 
them has for the most part evaporated. The question 
of greatest moment to the Whigs was whether Hus- 
kisson would join the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet. 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

"Brooks's, I2th Jany., 1828. 

". . . Sir Chas. Stuart is talked of for Foreign 
Secretary. Petty f may now retire and enjoy his 
charades at Bowood in quiet. He is admitted by 
common consent to be the damnedest idiot that ever 
lived, not even excepting the domestic Goderich." 

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey. 

"Berkeley Sq., Jany. 25, 1828. 
''. . . I have not time, nor, indeed, do I know 
enough, to say much of the present posture of affairs. 
To me it seems that the Beau, as you call him, is 
placing himself in a situation of dreadful responsibility 
and danger. His taking the office of Minister, after 
all that passed on that subject last year, to say nothing 
of other objections, would, in my opinion, be a. most 
fatal mistake, and I still hope there may be time, and 
that he may find friends to advise him to avoid it. 
But there is another danger which presses still more 
strongly on my mind. Huskisson's friends boast 

* The marriage never took place. Lady Maria Molyneux died 
tinmarried in 1872. 
t Lord Lansdowne. 



1827-28.] WHAT IS BROUGHAM AFTER? 487 

everywhere that Corn Laws, Free Trade, Portugal, 
Navarino — in short everything — have been conceded 
to him as the price of his accession to the Government. 
The Duke, I know, tells a different story ; but this 
proves that these matters are not distinctly understood 
and settled as they ought to be for the security of the 
new Government. The consequence is that it is left 
in the power of that rogue Huskisson to choose his 
own time and ground for a quarrel, if he shd. find it 
his interest to break up the Administration. 

"No communication or proposition of any kind has 
been made to me. I hear our old friends are eager 
for red-hot opposition ; but I certainly shall remain in 
my old position, and act as I may find right, without 
any consideration of either party. . . . 

" Ever yours, 

"Grey." 

Brougham's position at this time was a puzzle 
alike to his political friends and foes. In the previous 
August he had written to Lord Grey, submitting that 
Canning's death had removed the last obstacle to 
prevent Grey supporting Lord Goderich's adminis- 
tration, informing him that he, Brougham, had, within 
the preceding six weeks, refused " the most easy and 
secure income for life of £7000 or ;^8ooo a year, and 
high rank, which I could not take without leaving my 
friends in the House of Commons exposed to the 
leaders of different parties." He claimed, therefore, 
to have proved that he was acting "without the 
slightest tincture of interest." "I have agreed," he 
says, "to support the leader of the House of Commons, 
whoever he may be. . . . As for my real individual 
interest, I believe no one can doubt that it is clearly 
my game to see a weak Government, with only Peel 
(whom I never found very invincible), and myself at 
the head of the Liberal party." Reading between the 
lines of this strange letter, it is easy to see wh}- 

2 I. 



488 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

Brougham was so tender towards the men in office. 
Had they been turned out and a purely Liberal ad- 
ministration been formed, he knew it was hopeless for 
him to look for political office so long as George IV. 
was king. Brougham had offended too deeply for that 
in Queen Caroline's trial. Grey, who had deeply 
disapproved of the coalition under Canning, merely 
replied that "at present all reasonable grounds for 
confidence on which I could give any assurance of 
general support [to the Government] appear to me as 
much wanting as ever. I must remain, therefore, in 
the same position, supporting such measures as are 
consistent with my principles, and opposing, without 
any inducement to forbearance, whatever may appear 
to militate against them." To Creevey, Brougham 
continued to write in a strain of greater levity than 
he adopted towards Lord Grey. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

"[January] 1828. ' 
". . . Don't be alarmed, but endeavour to receive 
with equanimity, and if possible with fortitude, the 
painful intelligence that your beloved Sovereign has 
been most dangerously ill, and is still in a very pre- 
carious state. He lost in all 120 ounces of the blood- 
Royal in the course of about ten days. The complaint 
was inflammation, I suppose of the bladder, for they 
say it was owing to some illness of the prostate 
gland. I am told he is very far indeed from rallying 
as he used to do when bled formerly, and that all the 
loyal subjects near his person are in much conster- 
nation. 

"The Parlt. is likely to open in a very 'unsatis- 
factory' state — as our friend Castlereagh (God rest his 
soul) was wont to say. The chief ' feature ' — I mean 
Peel — will find it quite impossible to calculate on a 
majority on any one question, except perhaps a motion 
for turning them out or reforming the Parlt. ; and how 



1837-28.] GENERAL DISTRESS IN THE COUNTRY. 489 

he is even to get thro' the forms of a debate, if he is 
opposed by all the parties not in office, seems incon- 
ceivable, for even vesey is not there, being laid on 
the shelf for some months. The Ultras are in great 
force, and the Pluskissons full of faction. As a proof 
of the kind of steps the Tories are taking, I may say 
that your friend Lord Lonsdale has, in a letter which 
I have a copy of, been encouraging the Cumberland 
county meeting advising them to lay the state of 
distress before rarlt, because the Beau desires it ; and 
adding that they should not point out any remedies, 
but only ascribe it to the burthens upon agricultural 
produce and the reduced currency. . . . Lonsdale 
then seems to have thought that it might be said — 
* How happens your son Billy to be in office while you 
are thus mischievously embarrassing H.M. Govern- 
ment?' so he adds, awkwardly enough, that he is 
convinced Lord Lowther's first consideration is the 
interest of the country, and that he never would keep 
office if he thought, &c., &c., &:c. 

" I find that the worthy Laureate, Southey, is to 
move or second the resoln. that the distress is within 
the power of the Legislature; and a cousin of the 
family (H. Lowther), who holds one of their livings, 
is to move another. Meanwhile, the Beau stands firm 
and says ' he will keep his position ; ' meaning, of 
course, without any change. But unfortunately it is 
Peel whose position will be to keep ; so then, they 
say, the Beau adds — 'he shall bring forward measures, 
and if the Parlt. won't support him, he can't help it' 
His strength is no doubt in the Ultras, whom no one 
can wish well to, and the Huskissons, whom few will 
trust, after what happened two years ago. But this 
feeling won't carry the said Beau thro' everything, 
and / a7n quite confident he reckons without his host if 
he counts on it to the extent I hear." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Whitehall, Feby. 5, 1828. 

". . . We had Lord Durham (who stood my obser- 
vations on his being grown taller very affably),* Sydney 

* Mr. Lambton had been created Baron Durham on 29th January. 



490 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

Smith, Bob Adair, Lord Robert Spencer and Ferguson 
at dinner. . . . There is no end to the disasters of the 
Whigs. Poor Jim Abercromby and the fair Mary 
Anne* give out that they leave town for ever and ever 
next Easter, and fall back upon a little farm in Derby- 
shire; but no longer to superintend the dear, deaf 
Dick-aky Duke's property, for that appointment was 
given to another when Jim was dubbed a Privy 
Councillor, it being too infra dig. to be a Right 
Honorable Bailiff! and about ;^20oo a year more de- 
rived from law sources were sacrificed for ever in 
like manner as being inconsistent with his rank. 
Scarlett, too, is said to be perfectly speechless, except 
when he tells that being deprived of the power of 
returning to the circuit is a clear loss to him of ;!i^5ooo 
a year. . . . When Mrs. Taylor and I were left alone 
about one this morning, she said : — * As I know, Mr. 
Creevey, I may trust you with anything, I must tell 
you poor Mr. Denison is broken-hearted about his 
sister Lady Conyngham ; and his only relief, he says, 
is imparting his grief to me.' According to his own 
account, he protested to her from the first against her 
living under the King's roof; but that the thing, instead 
of getting better, has become daily worse and worse. 
Not that even now he can suppose there is anything 
criminal between persons of their age, but that he never 
goes into society without hearing allusions too plain 
to be misunderstood; and he lives in daily fear and 
expectation of the subject coming before Parliament. 
In short, such is his feeling that he has called formally 
upon his sister to leave her fat and fair friend and to go 
abroad. He has been backed in this application both 
by Lord Mountcharlesf and Lady Strathaven, and he 
has told her his will is to be altered immediately if 
she holds on; but she treats all such interference 
only with bursts of passion and defiance, always 
relying upon Lady Hertford's case as her precedent 
and justification. ..." 

* Third son of General Sir Ralph Abercromby. He was Speaker 
from 1835 to 1839, and his wife was Marianne Leigh, daughter of 
Egerton Leigh of the West Hall, Cheshire. 

t Lady Conyngham's eldest surviving son. 



1827-28.] A QUARREL. 491 

In the beginning of 1828 the quarrel of the Malig- 
nants with Brougham passed into a sharper phase, 
and occupies a great space in Creevey's correspon- 
dence at "that period. It would be wearisome to 
follow the matter in anything like detail ; suffice it to 
explain that Brougham had circulated a report that, 
at Doncaster races, Lord Grey had explained to Lord 
Cleveland (Darlington) the reason for his refusing to 
support Canning's ministry, namely, "that it leaned 
too much to the people and against the aristocracy." 
In an evil moment for peace, Brougham imparted 
this information to Creevey, reckoning, perhaps, on 
Creevey's ancient impatience with Grey for acting 
as a drag on the wheels of progress. But by this 
time Grey had become the idol of Creevey, who 
promptly remonstrated with his lordship on the im- 
prudence of his sentiments as reported by Brougham. 
Grey indignantly denied having made any such state- 
ment to Cleveland, and received that gentleman's denial 
of having had any communication with Brougham on 
the subject. Cleveland also forwarded to Grey an ex- 
planatory letter from Brougham, which, to judge from 
the force of language it elicited from Creevey, scarcely 
served to re-establish matters on a better basis. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Whitehall, Feb. 15, 1828. 
". . . This composition of Brougham's is a letter 
to Lord Cleveland written, of course, at Cleveland 
House and of four sides' length. No one who has not 
seen it can conceive its low, lying, dirty, shuffling 
villainy. However, with all his manoeuvres, he can't 
escape the charge, and he states in his own words, 
rather at more length and in stronger terms, exactly 
the same substance of the conversation between Lord 



492 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XlX. 

Cleveland and Grey as having passed at Doncaster, 
that he stated to me. Then he attempts to make out 
that the words are vague and may not warrant the 
construction put upon them, and the Lord knows 
what besides. He goes into fresh lies as to his uni- 
form support of Grey's character, and how he silenced 
three London channels of abuse of him, and was only 
too late by half an hour in not stopping the hostile 
iarticle in the Edinburgh Review, and concludes with 
a warning against mischievous tale-bearers, who, for 
their own purposes, would make mischief between 
Grey and him. 

"Grey's answer to Lord Cleveland is that he is 
anything but satisfied with his lordship's letter; that 
Brougham's letter is conclusive proof of the truth of 
the injurious statement he has made respecting his 
[Grey s] conversation at Doncaster ; and as his lord- 
ship had admitted in conversation at Cleveland House 
that there never was the least foundation for such 
allegation, he claims in justice to have the same 
admission under his lordship's hand. This brought 
another letter from our Niffy-Naffy marquis, in terms 
as explicit as could possibly be selected, stating the 
pleasure he had in complying with Lord Grey's request, 
and declaring unequivocally that no such conversation 
as that alleged to have passed at Doncaster between 
him and Lord Grey, or anything approaching to it, 
had ever taken place ; and he concludes by expressing 
his regret that any misunderstanding should take place 
between Brougham and Lord Grey, and with an offer 
of his services — tho' unauthorised by Brougham — to 
bring about their reconciliation. To this Grey returns 
a civil answer, stating the relief it is to his mind to 
have this unequivocal denial of the injurious statement 
circulated by Brougham having any foundation in fact ; 
but that, with respect to Brougham, until he shall 
make the same unequivocal denial of the circulation 
of the injurious statement, and say that it is entirely 
destitute of truth, all confidential intercourse between 
them must be suspended. And so the thing ends, 
and a charming mess it is for the arch-fiend — Lady 
Jersey, the Duke of Bedford, &c., having already copies 
[of the correspondence]. Grey . . . says Rosslyn made 
him much milder in his expressions than he wished." 



1827-28.] OVERTURES TO THE WHIGS. 493 

"6thFeby. 

". . . After our dinner at Fergy's, Lord Sefton 
made me go with him to the opera. . . . From the 
Opera House we went to Crockford's new concern, 
which is magnificent and perfect in taste and beauty. 
For a suite of rooms, it is the greatest lion in England, 
and is said by those who know the palace at Versailles 
to be even more magnificent than that. . . . After 
breakfast this morning I sallied forth to see the altera- 
tions in St. James's Park, and they are really great 
improvements, but the new palace * still remains the 
devil's own. . . . Grey is quite satisfied with the Beau, 
and says he will do capitally in the Lords as Minister." 

«7th. 
". . . In the course of my political jaw with Grey 
I said that, altho' I never expected the Beau to apply 
to him for assistance in the formation of his Cabinet, 
yet 1 did expect after all their friendly intercourse, 
and after all Lord Grey's essential service, he would 
have communicated to him what was going on. He 
said very naturally that he did not think himself 
entitled to such communication, and proceeded to tell 
me what he did consider as meant from the Beau to 
him, and with which — little as it was — he seemed quite 
satisfied. It seems" a letter came from the Beau to 
Lauderdale, directed to him at Howick, the Beau's 
name being written in the corner, and this in the 
midst of the concern. When Grey forwarded it, he 
told Lauderdale it had been a severe trial to his virtue 
to resist opening it at such a time, so Lauderdale sent 
it back to him. Its contents were to tell him he had 
ofi'ered the Ordnance to Rosslyn, and to beg all Lauder- 
dale's influence with him to induce him to accept it, 
and then he goes on to say he wishes his Government 
to be anything but an exclusive one, that his own wishes 
would make it even more comprehensive, but he finds 
considerable difficulties from preconceived prejudices. 
Grey is quite right, I have no doubt, in supposing the 
'comprehension' meant him, but the poor fellow 
thinks the 'preconceived prejudices' were those of 

* Buckingham Palace. 



494 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

Peel and the Tories, whereas I cannot doubt their 
being the property of Prinney. However, as I said 
before, he seemed as pleased as Punch with everything, 
and particularly with his own conduct and situation ; 
and so was she." 

"8th. 

". . . Let me mention to you that the Tankervilles 
have a box at the French play, and that he and she 
have it the alternate weeks. Is not that the image of 
them both? . . . Taylor was with old Eldon at his 
house this morning about business, and Eldon told 
him he had been shamefully used upon the formation 
of the present Government — never consulted — nothing 
offered him ! Was there ever? Eldon whining at his 
unhappy fate after all — and to Michael Angelo Taylor 
too ! Oh dear, oh dear ! " 

"nth. 

"... I went to Brooks's, and, upon entering the 
room, Bruffam was sitting at a table with his back to 
me, convulsing a group of noblemen and gentlemen 
who stood round with some good story Not having 
seen him before, I took up a lateral position to him, 
with my eye fixed upon him, waiting for recognition ; 
which was no sooner effected than up he sprung to 
embrace me with 'Well, old ultra-Tory, how are you ? ' 
— * Charmingly, I thank you, dear moderate Tory ; how 
Bxeyou r . . . 

"Brooks's, 1 2th. 

". . . Sefton is cracking his jokes to the right and 
left to a numerous audience, all at the expense ot 
Huskisson and Dudley, as if he had not been their 
supporter for these six months past. I really can't 
approve of him. Huskisson fell 50 per cent, in last 
night's jaw, and the Beau gained a corresponding degree 
of elevation. In short the latter will do capitally : his 
frank, blunt and yet sensible manner will beat the 
shuffling, lying Huskisson and Brougham school out 
of the field. . . . My sincere opinion is — and 1 beg to 
record it thus early — that the Beau will do something 
for the Catholics of Ireland." 



1827-28.] RIVAI, MARQUESSES. 495 

" 19th. 

"... I was well pleased with the hearty effusion 
of my ingenuous friend Sir Colin Campbell * yester- 
day, whom I met for the first time since his return 
from Ireland. — * Well,' says I, ' Sir Colin, so we've got 
the Beau at the top of the tree at last' — 'Yes, but 
sorely against his will. I can assure you, Mr. Creevey, 
he would much rather have remained at his own post 
as head of the Army ; but, by God, sir ! nobody else 
would take the office, and he could do no other than 
he did. But, sir, you may rely upon it, he'll make an 
excellent minister. ... I can assure you the old Tories 
are already frightened out of their senses of him.' . . . 
In my way back from Lady Elizabeth Whitbread's this 
morning 1 was stopt by Burdett, who got off his horse 
and would walk back with me across the Park, his 
object being to deplore the times. . . . With all his 
admiration of Brougham's talents in publick and 
his social ones in private, his opinion was that the 
world would be benefited by his being out of it." 

"21st. 
". . . The Beau has made Lady Grey's brother an 
Irish bishop and Lord Rosslyn Lord Lieutenant of 
the county of Fife ; which, as his tzvo first acts, is not 
amiss, and quite enough, as Colin Campbell said, to 
frighten people out of their senses." 

" 23rcl. 

". . . Allow me to mention, en passant, that the 
Marquis of Cleveland remains in London over to- 
morrow for no other purpose than that of dining with 
the Duke of Wellington. Now was there ever? — 
after all that passed last summer. The Marquis, 
however, has really struck, and keeps the patronage 
of the county versus Lord Londonderry ! " 

"25th. 
". . . Lord Rosslyn told me last night that he 
would have taken the Army if the Beau had offered 

* Not he who afterwards became Lord Clyde, but a namesake, 
who acted as brigade-major at the battle of Assaye, and throughout 
the first Marhatth campaign. 



496 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

it to him, tho' he had refused the Ordnance ; but he 
supposed the Duke would not let it be in other hands 
than that of a subaltern of his own." * 

«26th. 

". . . I met Lord Lansdowne in Oxford Street for 
the first time since his fall. His appearance alone 
was a sufficient disqualification of him for managing 
the affairs of the country in its present difficulties. 
His person was carefully protected by an umbrella, 
he being the only person in the street who had one 
up, and there not having been a single drop of rain 
the whole day. I congratulated him upon having no 
explanations to make in these explaining times, and I 
told him \i\^ first step had been the fatal one for him — 
that of submitting to the wretch Goodrich as his 
leader in the Lords." 

"27th. 
". . . Dined at Lord Grey's last night, where Lord 
Durham and Bob Adair were the only company. 
Lord Rosslyn and Lady Georgiana Bathurst came in 
the evening. Grey and my lady were both very 
much amused at my making Lord Durham tell who 
dined at Brougham's Cabinet dinner last Sunday. 
Durham was one, and Sefton and the Duke of Leinster, 
Lord Stuart (Sir Charles that was), old Essex and 
four Scotch barristers. So much for a Cabinet dinner 
by a person who says he is at the head of 200 gentle- 
men of the House of Commons, and who could only 
muster one member of that body (Sefton) on this great 
occasion." 

" March 3rd. 

"... I met Lauderdale, who made me go with 
him to his lodgings, where I was a full hour ; but he 
splices so many subjects upon one another, it is diffi- 
cult to make a selection. . . . He is of opinion that 
any minister or any King must be stark, staring mad 
that would trust Brougham for a minute. ... I was 
in the 'Nutshell' at \ past ^.f Robin Adair, young 

* Lord Hill had been appointed Commander-in-Chief, 
t Lady Holland, fiom whom Creevey had long been ahenated 
owing to the schism in the Opposition ranks, had sent him a pressing 



1S27-2S.] TUli. DUKE OF SUSSEX AND THE WHIGS. 497 

Lord William Russell, Charles Fox and myself, were 
the only additions to John Allen and my lord and my 
lady — the latter, of course, being handed down to 
dinner by Lord William. He planted himself by her 
side at the table, but she said: — 'No, Lord William, 
let Mr. Creevey come next to me : it is so long since 
I have seen him.' Was there ever? . . ." 

"5th. 

". . . So j'ou see Prinney crept into town at last 
on Monday night in the dark, when nobody could see 
his legs, or whether he could walk ; but as there is a 
Council at St. James's to-day we must hear something 
of him shortly. Lord Rosslyn is to be there to be 
sworn in as Lord Lieutenant of Fife, and he has 
promised me to keep a sharp look-out on the legs. 
. . . Here is an invitation for Sunday week from the 
Duke of Sussex, and Stephenson says, * Oh, you must 
come, because it is a dinner purposely for Lord Grey, 
and the 16 persons asked are selected as his tried 
friends, and the thing is meant as a marked compli- 
ment from the Duke to Lord Grey.' Now in the 
world, was there ever? Sussex being, or having 
been, quite as much for Canning as any of the other 
fools, rats and rogues. I find the Duke of Bedford, 
Jersey and old Fitzwilliam are of the elect, as well 
as Taylor and myself; but neither Sefton nor 
Brougiham." 

"March 17, 1828. 

". . . Think of Grey telling me that yesterday 
morning he made his first appearance in a new 
* Wellington ' coat (a kind of a half-and-half great coat 
and undercoat, you know, meeting close and square 
below the knees), which was no sooner seen by Lady 
Grey and her daughters than it was instantly stormed 
and carried fairly and by main force from his back, 
tiever to see the light again — at least on his back." 

" 19th. 
". . . Sefton was very good fun about a morning 
call on Lady Holland. . . . Amongst other things she 

invitation to dine with her in "her nut-shell," a house in London 
where she was living during a temporary absence from Holland House. 



498 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch, XtX. 

talked about ages, and observed that Lord Sefton and 
Lord Holland were of the same age — about 56. ' For 
myself,' said she, ' I believe I am near the same ; ' and 
then the page being called, she said : ' Go and ask 
Mr. Allen how old 1 am.' As the house is so small 
and the rooms so near, they heard Allen holloa out 
in no very melo.dious tones — ' She is 57.' But Lady 
Holland was not content with this, and said it was 
too old for her, and made the page go back again ; and 
again they heard Allen roar in a much louder voice : 
*1 tell you she's 57.' . . ." 

"March 20th, 1828. 

". . . Nash or some of his crew waited upon 
Wellington the other day, stating the King's pleasure 
to have a part of the new palace at Pimlico * pulled 
down and the plan altered ; to which the Beau replied 
it was no business of his ; they might pull down as 
much as they liked. But as this was not the answer 
that was wanted, he at last said: — 'If you expect me 
to put my hand to any additional expense, I'll be 
damned if I will ! ' — Prinney is said to be furious about 
it. . . . Prinney said to the Duke of Leeds the other 
day : — * Duke, you are one of the few people I can 
trust in times like these. Dine with me to-day at six.' 
Which he did, and they both got so drunk as to be 
nearly speechless. . . . Mr. Bankes is to move to- 
morrow for a committee to enquire into the expense of 
public buildings, and the Government is to accede to 
the motion, which will of course bring Windsor and 
Pimlico palaces to view. Well may Prinney say as 
he does that 'he sees distinctly we are going to have 
Charles ist's times again.' . . . The Beau is rising^ 
most rapidly in the market as a practical man of 
business. All the deputations come away charmed 
with him. But woe be to them that are too late ! He 
is punctual to a second himself, and waits for no man." 

" Brooks's, March 26th. 

" We have an event in our family. Fergy has got a 
regiment — a tip-top crack one — one of those beautiful 
Highland regiments that were at Brussels, Quatre-Bras 

* Buckingham Palace. 




[To face f. 498. 



1827-28.] LORD HILL PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT. 499 

and Waterloo. But his manner of getting it is still 
more flattering to him and honorable to Lord Hill, 
backed, no doubt, as he must have been by the Beau. 
It has been the subject of a battle of ten days' duration 
between the King and Lord Hill. The former pro- 
posed Lord Glenlyon, the Duke of Athol's second 
son, married to the Duke of Northumberland's sister, 
who has been in the King's Household, and, as the 
King said, had his promise of this regiment (the 79th). 
On the other hand, the King has been known to say 
over and over again that Ferguson never should have 
a regiment in his lifetime — for various offences. He 
voted and spoke against the Duke of York ; he went 
to Queen Caroline's in regimentals ; he moved for the 
Milan Commission, seconded by Mr. Creevey in a 
most indecent, intemperate speech, and was voted 
against by Tierney and all the Whigs as being much 
too bad ; and yet little Hill has carried him thro'. . . . 
It is understood Lord Hill signified his intention of 
resigning ^if his recommendation was not acceded 
to. ... I feel quite certain that Lady Conyngham's 
sneers and Sir Henry Hardinge's fears were all con- 
nected with this then pending battle." 



Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

" Newmarket, April 26th, 1828. 

" The great fun of the week was the defeat of the 
Grosvenors, who all came from every part of the 
world to see Navarino win in a canter. He is the worst 
horse at Newmarket, and they have been deluded by 
their trainer Dilly, who made them believe he had 
beat Mameluke in a trial. Think of a man of ;^200,ooo 
a year sending his horses to a notorious rascal who 
trains for Gully, Redesdale and Stuart ! They make 
use of his horses for their betting." 

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey. 

'' May I St. 
". . . Here is a story, for the truth of which I do 
not vouch, but it is in general circulation. The King 
had appointed the Bishop of Winchester (our own 



500 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

Sumner) to administer to him the Sacrament on one 
of the Sundays about Easter. The Bishop was not 
punctual to his time, and when he arrived, the King> 
in a great passion at having been kept waiting, abused 
and even swore at him in the most indecent manner; 
on which the Bishop very coolly said he must be 
permitted to withdraw, as he perceived his Majesty 
was not then in a fit state of mind to receive the Sacra- 
ment, and should be ready to attend on some future 
day, when he hoped to find his Majesty in a better 
state of preparation ! " 



The Duke of Wellington took a different view 
from Mr. Huskisson, who had been in the Goderich 
Cabinet, upon the Corn duties ; in fact, early in 
spring, Huskisson had laid his resignation before the 
King, and only consented to withdraw it upon the 
provision being inserted in the new Corn Law that 
the full duty of 205. a quarter upon imported wheat 
should only be levied when the price fell to 605. a 
quarter — the lowest, as landowners maintained, which 
was compatible with the existence of British agri- 
culture. But when the question of the disfranchise- 
ment of Penryn and East Retford came again before 
the House of Commons, three Ministers — Huskisson, 
Palmerston, and Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne) — 
voted against their colleagues in favour of disfran- 
chisement. Immediately after the division, Huskisson 
wrote to the Duke to say that he would "lose no 
time " in affording him an opportunity of placing his 
office [Colonial Secretary] " in other hands." The 
Duke took the mutinous minister sharply at his 
word, and refused to listen to the remonstrances of 
Palmerston and Dudley, who assured him that Hus- 
kisson had no wish to resign. Huskisson wrote to 
the Duke to the same effect ; but the Duke's military 



1S27-28.] HUSKISSON RESIGNS. 5^1 

habit of discipline unfitted him for the kind of patience 
necessary to keep together a poHtical party. Weary 
of perpetual friction with his Canningite colleagues, 
he declined all overtures for reconciliation. Hus- 
kisson was allowed to go, and was followed out of 
office by Palmerston, Grant, Dudley, and Lamb. 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Stoke, 3rd June [Ascot Races]. 
". . . Grey has seen all the correspondence 
between the Beau and Huskisson, and a greater 
mass of lies has never been circulated than those by 
Huskisson's friends. In short, everything Wellington 
has done has been straightforward to the outside, and 
Huskisson has acted like a knave throughout, and 
Ward,* who was a negociator between them, like a 
perfect idiot. Prinney was the only sensible man 
besides the Beau, and stuck to him like a leech." 

'' 4th. 
". . . Well, have you read Huskisson's charming 
compositions of letters that he read of his own accord 
and as his own defence. Never was there anything 
so low and contemptible throughout, either in intel- 
lectual confusion or mental dirt. In short, thank 
God ! he is gone to the devil and can never shew 
again. The Beau, both in talent and plain dealing, 
in his letters and conduct, is as clean and clear as 
ever he can be.t The Pet % is quite right upon all 
these matters at last, Bruffam, tho' evidently by no 
means extinguished, is damaged in his estimation." 

" Sth. 

". . . On Tuesday the King made Jersey go over 
the names of all the company in this house, and when 

* Lord Dudley. 

t Referring to the correspondence between Mr. Huskisson and the 
Duke of Welhngton about the resignation of the former. 
X Lord Sefton. 



502 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

he mentioned mine Prinney was pleased to say : — 
' Well, he's not much of a jockey I think ! ' " 

"Whitehall, June 17th. 

". . . At night Frances * and I were at Lady 
Jersey's by half-past eleven. I wish it had been 
earlier, for we met the Duke of Wellington coming 
downstairs with a lady under his arm. He put his 
hand out to me, and gave me a very natural shake, 
and this was all, you know, that could pass between 
us under such circumstances. I must say my curiosity 
to be mixed up with him again is much abated by his 
late horrible appointments — Croker a Privy Coun- 
cillor — Vesey Fitzgerald a Cabinet Minister — and, 
above all, that offensive, inefficient sprig of nobility. 
Lord Francis Leveson Gower, to be Secretary for 
Ireland is really beyond all enduring. The last, I 
presume, is Lady Charlotte Greville's doing, and 
must, one should think, be most prejudicial to the 
Beau. As for Jack Calcraft, I don't care a fig, and I 
am sure the dirt}'^ Canning Whigs have no cause of 
complaint against him. Talking of Secretaries for 
Ireland, do you know of Wm. Lamb's f crim. con. 
case? The facts are these. Lord Brandon,^ who is 
a divine as well as a peer, got possession of a 
correspondence between his lady and Mr. Secretary 
Lamb, which left no doubt to him or any one else 
as to the nature of the connection between these 
young people. So he writes a letter to the lady 
announcing his discovery, as well as the conclusion 
he naturally draws from it ; but he adds, if she will 
exert her interest with Mr. Lamb to procure him a 
bishopric, he will overlook her offence and restore 
her the letters. To which my lady replies, she shall 
neither degrade herself nor Mr. Lamb by making 
any such application ; hut that she is very grate- 
ful to my lord for the letter he has written her, 
which she shall put immediately into Mr. Lamb's 
possession." 

* Mrs. Taylor. 

t Afterwards 2nd Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister. 

i The Rev. William Crosbie, Lord Brandon, D.D. 



1S27-28.] COLLINGWOOD'S MEMOIRS. 503 

''Dolphin Inn, Chichester [where Creevey was staying with 
the Seftons for Goodwood Races], August nth. 

". . . You may judge of our weather at Stoke 
when I tell you that, with all their courage and con- 
tempt of rain, we were on horseback only once, and 
for less than one hour, and then were wet thro'. 
But if the body was not regaled, the mind was — at 
least by me — for I pitched my tent daily in the green- 
house, read Lord Collingwood and his life and letters 
thro', and was delighted with him. You must excuse 
me if I am rather pompous and boring upon this 
subject. You see, my dear, that altho' the poor man 
was the bravest and best and most amiable of men, 
this personal character of his is nothing compared 
with the part he acts in history for the four or five 
years intervening between Nelson's death and his. 
At that time the Army was nothing, compared with 
what it became immediately after, and Collingwood 
alone by his sagacity and decision — his prudence and 
moderation — sustained the interests of England and 
eternally defeated the projects of France. He was, 
in truth, the prime and sole minister of England, 
acting upon the seas, corresponding himself with all 
surrounding States, and ordering and executing every- 
thing upon his own responsibility. . . . One has 
scarcely patience to think that, whilst our Govern- 
ment had the sense to see, and to tell him again and 
again, that his value to them and the country was 
such as could never be replaced, and to implore him 
actually to continue his services at the known and 
certain sacrifice of his life, still the villains were base 
enough to refuse every recommendation of his in 
favor of meritorious officers, as he justly observes, 
when parliamentary pretensions were to be put in 
competition. 

" The agreeableness of the work is greatly added 
to by the constant proof it affords of the early, long 
and intimate union between Nelson and Collingwood. 
Even in the novel line, I have found nothing so 
calculated to lumpify one's throat as when one of 
these great men of war, poor Nelson, in his dying 
moments desires his captain to give his love to Colling- 
wood. 

2 M 



504 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

"... A delightful drive to Arundel, the outside 
of which, grounds, &c,, have been made perfect by 
our Barny * (who was not there) ; but the devil him- 
self could make nothing of the interior. Anything so 
horrid and dark and frightful in all things I never 
beheld." 

"15th. 
". . , The house at Goodwood is perfection. It is 
an immense concern, and every part of it is gaiety 
itself. It was building when I was at Chichester in 
1800 by the old Duke,t and tho' he lived to finish it, 
he only left one room furnished. The present Duke :|: 
has gone on with the furnishing by one room per 
annum, and as far as he has gone nothing can be done 
with more perfect taste. . . . Turning out of the hall 
on our right into the principal drawing-room, 60 feet 
long at least I should say, with a circular room open 
at the end — both rooms furnished with the brightest 
yellow satin . . . here we found the ladies and 
various men, . . . There were four sisters of the 
Duchess,§ . . . and four plainer young women one 
can't well see. The Duchess, tho'Jn my mind not 
nearly so pretty as the Seftons think, is greatly 
superior to her sisters, with a most agreeable and 
intelligent countenance. . . . She has now eight 
children, and lives all the year in the country. , . . 
What a sour, snarling beast this Rogers is, and such 
a fellow for talking about the grandees he lives with— - 
female as well as male, and the loves he has upon his 
hands. Sefton and I hold him a damned bore." 

" Woolbeding, Aug. i6th. 

' ^'. . . This place is really exquisite — its history not 
amiss. This venerable, grave old man | and offspring 
of Blenheim purchased it 35 years ago with the nioney 
he won as keeper of the faro bank at Brooks's, and he 
has made it what it is by his good taste in planting, 

* The 1 2th Duke of Norfolk. 

t The 3rd Duke of Richmond ; died in 1806. 

X The 5th Duke of Richmond. 

§ Daughters of the ist Marquess of Anglesey. 

II Lord Robert Spencer, 3rd son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough , 



1 827-28.] PETWORTH. . 505 

&c. . , , There is only one fictitious ornament to the 
place, and ' the Comical ' seems to have shown as much 
address in converting it into his property as he did in 
winning the estate. It is a fountain, by far the most 
perfect in taste, elegance and in everything else I ever 
saw. I am always going to it. It came from Cowdray, 
3 miles off, Lord Mountague's. When Cowdray was 
burnt down 30 years ago, this fountain, being in the 
middle of a court, was greatly defaced and neglected. 
Lord Mountague was drowned in the Rhine with 
Burdett's brother at the precise time his house was 
burnt, and so never knew it ; and as there was no one 
on the spot to look after the ruins. Bob thought it but 
a friendly office to give the fountain a retreat in his 
grounds, and as he himself told me, it cost him £100 
to remove it and put it up here. It has some fame, 
because Horace Walpole in one of his letters says he 
had gone or was going to Cowdray to see Lord 
Mountague's fountain ; and its history is well known 
as being the production of Benvenuto Cellini, . , . who, 
they tell me, was a famous man. Look in the dictionary 
and tell me about him." 

"Petvvorth, Aug. i8th. 

". . . Nothing can be more imposing or magnificent 
than the effect of this house the moment you are within 
it, not from that appearance of comfort which strikes 
you so much at Goodwood, for it has none. . . . Every 
door of every room was wide open from one end to 
the other, and from the front to behind, whichever way 
you looked ; and not a human being visible . . . but 
the magnitude of the space being seen all at once— 
the scale of every room, gallery, passage, &c., the 
infinity of pictures and statues throughout, made as 
agreeable an impression upon me as I ever witnessed. 
How we got into the house,* I don't quite recollect, 
for I think there is no bell, but I know we were some 
time at the door, and when we were let in by a little 
footman, he disappeared de suite, and it was some time 
before we saw anybody else. At length a young lady 
appeared, and a ver}^ pretty one too, very nicely 
dressed and with very pretty manners. She proved 

* Creevey had come there on a visit with the Seftons. 



S06 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX. 

to be a Miss Wyndham, but, according to the oustom 
of the family, not a legitimate Miss Wyndham, nor 
yet Lord Egremont's own daughter, but his brother 
William Wyndham's, who is dead. . . . We had been 
half an hour at this work [looking at the pictures] 
when in comes my Lord Egremont — as extraordinary 
a person, perhaps, as any in England; certainly the 
most so of his own caste or order. He is aged yj and 
as fresh as may be, with a most incomparable and 
acute understanding, with much more knowledge upon 
all subjects than he chuses to pretend to, and which 
he never discloses but incidentally, and, as it were, by 
compulsion. Simplicity and sarcasm are his distin- 
guishing characteristics. He has a fortune, I believe, 
of ;^ioo,ooo a year, and never man could have used it 
with such liberality and profusion as he has done. 
Years and years ago he was understood to be ;^200,ooo 
or ;^300,ooo out of pocket for the extravagance of his 
brother Charles Wyndham, just now dead; he has 
given each of these natural daughters ;!^40,ooo upon 
their marriage ; he has dealt in the same liberal scale 
with private friends, with artists, and, lastly, with by 
no means the least costly customers — with mistresses, 
of whom Lady Melbourne must have been the most 
distinguished leader in that way. 

"He was very civil, and immediately said — 'What 
will you do ? ' and upon Sefton expressing a wish to 
see his racing establishment, a carriage was ordered 
to the door, and another for the ladies to drive about 
the park. In the interval till they arrived, he slouched 
along the rooms with his hat on and his hands in his 
breeches pockets, making occasional observations upon 
the pictures and statues, which were always most 
agreeable and instructive, but so rambling and desul- 
tory, and walking on all the time, that it was quite 
provoking to pass so rapidly over such valuable 
materials. . . . [After spending a long afternoon 
inspecting the racing stud] 1 was much struck with 
Lord Egremont observing that he did not take much 
interest in the thing; that it had been an amusement 
to his brother, and on that account he had gone on with 
it. When I asked Sefton if he had not been struck 
with this, he said : — ' Yes ; and the more struck and the 
more pleased because he did not say his /cor brother.' 



1837-28.] crp:evey out in the cold. so; 

". . . [At dinner] it fell to my lot to hand out Mrs. 
Wyndham, the Somerset filly,* and whatever you may 
say or think, she is really become damned handy and 
agreeable. ... I retired to my bedroom, which, upon 
measurement, I found to be 30 feet by 20, and high in 
proportion. The bed would have held six people in 
a row without the slightest inconvenience to each 
other. ... I had quantities of companions, but only 
two with names to them — 'Bloody' Queen Mary and 
Sir Henry Sidney as large as life. . . ." 

There follow many pages of description of the 
pictures in the house ; and although the names of the 
painters are given in much detail, there is not a word 
of George Romney's well-known works at Petworth, 
so completely had that artist, so much sought after 
now, fallen out of esteem. 

Having lost his friend Lord Thanet, by whose 
favour he sat for the borough of Appleby, and not 
being acquainted with the new earl, Mr. Creevey was 
unprovided with a seat at the election of 1828. Lord 
Darlington, indeed, possessed, among others, the 
comfortable constituency of Winchelsea, boasting no 
less than eleven electors, and returning two members 
to Parliament. These two members happened to be 
Lord Howick and Mr. Brougham, the first of whom 
was standing for Northumberland, the second for 
Westmorland — neither of them with much prospect 
of winning his contest. Creevey had so completely 
won the favour of Lady Darlington that, aided by 
Mrs. Taylor, she persuaded Lord Darlington to 
promise the reversion of one of the Winchelsea seats 
to him, supposing Howick or Brougham, or both, to 

* Daughter of Lord Charles Somerset, 2nd son of the 5th Duke of 
Beaufort. She married Mr. (afterwards General Sir Henry) Wyndham, 
brother of the ist Lord Lcconficld. 



5p8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XIX: 

be successful in the north. Creevey had an interview 
with Lord Darlington on 5th June, and found that 
they were of one mind in politics, save on the Corn 
Laws, to the reform of which Darlington, as a great 
landowner, was distinctly opposed. However, ex- 
plained Creevey, "any such discussion appeared to 
me unnecessary, because there was no principle I 
held more sacred than that, when one gentleman held 
a gratuitous seat in Parliament from another, and any 
difference arose in their politicks, the former was 
bound in honor to surrender it." 

He went down and acted for Lord Howick in the 
election for Winchelsea, but as both Brougham and 
Howick failed in the northern constituencies, Creevey 
found himself, for a second time, out in the cold. 
He treated his exclusion very philosophically, and 
presently we find him writing his accustomed de- 
spatches to Miss Ord. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" StokCj August 20th. 
". . . Old Salisbury * arrived yesterday ... in her 
accustomed manner, in a phaeton drawn by four long- 
tail black Flanders mares — she driving the wheel 
horses, and a postilion on the leaders, with two out- 
riders on corresponding long-tail blacks. Her man 
and maid were in her chaise behind; her groom and 
saddle horses arrived some time after her. It is 
impossible to do justice to the antiquity of her face. 
If, as alleged, she is only 74 years old, it is the most 
cracked, or rather furrowed piece of mosaic you ever 
saw; but her dress, in the colours of it at least, is 
absolutely infantine. . . . Sefton says she is very 
clever, and he ought to know. I wish you just saw 
her as I do now. She thinks she is alone, and I am 

* The Dowager Marchioness, who was burnt to death with the 
west wing of Hatfield House in 1835. 



1827-28.] TI-IE CLARE ELECTION. 509 

writing at the end of the adjoining room, the folding 
doors being open. She is reclining on a sofa, reading 
the Edinhrd Keview, without spectacles or glass of 
any kind. Her dress is white muslin, properly loaded 
with garniture, and she has just put off a very large 
bonnet, profusely gifted with bright lilac ribbons, 
leaving on her head a very nice lace cap, not less 
adorned with the brightest yellow ribbon. . . ." 

" Stoke, Aug. 26th. • 

". . . Upon our return [from Egham races] our 
only company arrived was Wm. Lamb, alias Viscount 
Melbourne. I had a good walk with him and found 
him very pretty company indeed, and very instructive 
about Ireland. At about 8 we sat down to dinner — 
Prince and Princess Lieven, Lord and Lady Cowper, 
Lord Melbourne, [Sir George] Warrender, Montron, 
C. Greville, Frank Russell, Luttrell and Motteux, 
which with C. Grenville, Churchill and myself, and 
the worthy family themselves [the Seftons] made 
19 or 20. To-day the party is to be added to by 
Prince d'Aremberg, Villa Real, Alvanley and our flash 
Tom Buncombe. ... 

" O'Connell's election and Dawson's speech at 
Derry * are conclusive proofs to me of some great 
approaching change in the fate of Ireland, and I wish 
to see that country before and during the operation 
of this crisis." 

* Vesey Fitzgerald, on accepting office, had been beaten by Dan 
O'Connell iri standing his re-election for county Clare. O'Connell, as 
a Roman Catholic, could not take his seat in Parliament. The Clare 
election had a notable influence upon the question of Roman Catholic 
emancipation. 



( 510 ) 



CHAPTER XX. 

1828. 

Although Mr. Creevey sometimes referred to Ireland 
as his native countr}'-, whence it is to be assumed that, 
although born in Liverpool, he reckoned himself of 
Irish descent, yet he was turned sixty before he ever 
visited that land. In the autumn of 1828 he made an 
expedition to Dublin, furnished with letters of intro- 
duction from Lord Melbourne, which stood him in 
excellent stead, as the following curiously deferential 
letter may serve to show : — 



Mr. George Morris to Viscount Melbourne. 

" 27, Gardiner Place, Dublin, 6th Sept., 1828. ' 

" My dear Viscount Melbourne, 

" I have been highly honored by receiving 
your Lordship's most obliging Note of the 28th ultimo; 
and I continued to make daily enquiries for Mr. 
Creevy's expected arrival at the Hotels your Lordship 
referred to, 'till a letter came, under Lord Sefton's 
Privilege, addressed to Mr. Creevy at Morrisson's 
Hotel ; when I secured there a comfortable Bed Room 
for your Lordship's Friend, which proved to be fortu- 
nate, because, when Mr. Creevy came to Dublin on 
last Wednesday Evening, and before he made himself 
known at Morrisson's, he was shewn, there, into the 
only vacant Bed Room, a small and objectionable apart- 
ment. But, on announcing His Name, He was shewn 



l828.] AN OBSEQUIOUS CICERONE. 51 1 

to a comfortable Room, ordered by Lt.-Col. Morris 
for Mr. Creevy, in obedience to your Lordship's com- 
mands to me, and for which 1 remain most grateful 
to you. 

"Mr. Creevy did me the Honor to dine with me 
here, on the Day after his Arrival in Dublin, when I 
was lucky enough to secure Mr. Blake, the Surgeon- 
General Crampton and Mr. Greville to meet Mr. 
Creevy at Dinner, and he was much pleased by meet- 
ing them. 

" It occurred that I was asked to Dinner at Lord 
F. L. Gower's the next Day, yesterday, and as Mr. 
Creevy, also, received an Invitation, I had the Honor 
to call for him and to take him to Dinner to your 
Lordship's late Residence in the Park,* and to bring 
him home safe to Morrisson's. I am happy to assure 
you that Lord Francis L, Gower has, again, invited 
Mr. Creevy to Dinner for this Day, and I shall not 
fail to attend Mr. Creevy, to see all the public Institu- 
tions, and Lions of Dublin, finding he is so well pleased 
with our City, that He purposes, now, to remain here 
Eight or Ten Days. 

" I moved our Friend Mr. James Corry to call on 
Mr. Creevy, as he could not meet him at my House, 
from a previous Engagement, and Corry is greatly 
pleased at his good Fortune, to be acquainted with so 
distinguished and so highly talented a Gentleman as 
your Lordship knows Mr. Creevy to be. Blake, who 
met him at the Duke of Norfolk's, and Crampton here, 
are rejoiced now to have an opportunity of inviting 
Mr. Creevy to their Houses in Dublin. 
" I remain, Ever your Lordship's 

grateful obedient 

"George Morris." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Condover Hall, Sept. i, 1828. 

". . . Our coach was full, but we dropt two at 
Oxford, and to my great delight we left the other 
filthy wretch at Birmingham at 6 in the morning. 
He had been eating /r^zcv/s all night, and flinging the 

* Lord Melboi:rne. as Mr. Lamb, had been Secretary for Ireland. 



Si 2, THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. X . 

skins at the bottom of the coach. However, I 
changed coaches at Birmingham, so it was all mighty 
well- Having breakfasted then at that early hour, I 
came alone to Shrewsbury . . . and embarked in a 
chay for Condover Hall, just 5 miles from Salop. 
Altho' the two Stoke young ladies . . . have always 
praised the house much to me, their praises have 
been much— very much — below its deserts. It is a 
charming and most incomparable house. . . . Dear 
Mr. and Mrs, Smythe Owen and I have lived in the 
most perfect harmony since 4 o'clock on Saturday 
afternoon, but other human being have I seen none, 
except the parson at church yesterday, whom I was 
in hopes to have seen more of. He is Mr. Leicester, 
nephew to the late Lord de Tabley. . . . Having 
known his father in the days of my youth at Cam- 
bridge as by far the most ultra and impertinent dandy 
of his day, 1 was curious to see the son. It was 
precisely the same thing over again. This beautiful 
youth (for such he is), aged 27, has been appointed by 
the Court of Chancery guardian to his nephew Lord 
de Tabley, aged 16. About 6 weeks ago, he was 
married to his aunt Lady de Tabley, who expects to be 
confined next month. I am sorry she is not [illegible] 
for this second marriage. On her part she forfeits 
;{y5oo a year out of her jointure of ^1500; and his 
diocesan, the Bishop of Lichfield, has given him notice 
he shall eject him from his living for marrying his 
aunt, which reduces his income to ;^o//^m^. . . ." 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

"Stoke, Sept. 7th, 1828. 
"My dear Creevey, 

" My curiosity about the Irish road is quite 
satisfied by your enthusiastic description of it, and I 
quite feel I have seen it and the Menai Bridge. This 
is the way I like to make my tours. ... I don't believe 
the Beau has the slightest intention of doing the 
smallest thing for the Catholics, or that he ever thinks 
about them, any more than he does about the 
Russians, Turks or Greeks. When the time comes, 
he will send troops to Ireland. I believe he has no 
other nostrum for that or any other difficulty." 



i828.] THE BESSBOROUGH ESTATES. 513 

: " Nothing impressed Mr. Crcevey more favourably 
during his visit to Ireland than the management of the 
Bessborough estates, and the manner in which Lord 
and Lady Duncannon discharged the responsibilities 
of resident landowners.* 

Mr. Crcevey to Miss Onl 
" Besborough (Paradise !), Monday, Sept. 15, 1828, 7^ .\,M. 

". . . Well ! what a charming day I had yesterday, 
during which I said to myself repeatedly — 'And can I 
really be in this savage, wretched Ireland, as I have 
always been taught to believe it was, and that it 
could be no otherwise?' We went to the parish 
church yesterday, 2^ miles off. It is a living of 
;^i2oo a year in the gift of the Crown. The rector is 
a most liberal man, and acts hand in hand with 
Duncannon in everything. . . . The church is larger 
than yours at Rivenhall, and was literally full ; every 
one being perfectly well dressed, and not a poor 
person in the aisle. As there are no poor rates in 
Ireland, the clergyman in finishing the Communion 
service says — * Remember the poor ! ' and a box is 
immediately brought round, into which, if my ears 
did not deceive me, I heard a chink from every pew. 

" The service over, I repaired to my favorite spot, 
the chancel, to look at the founder of this family in 
marble. Sir John Ponsonby of Cumberland, a follower 
of Cromwell, who gave him this small mark of his 
favor in return — 20,000 English acres of land, con- 
fiscated property of the Catholicks who opposed the 
Protector or Usurper, whichever you like to call him. 
I expressed my surprise to Duncannon at the number 
of Protestants, and he said a great portion were 
descendants of the English who had come over with 
the first Ponsonby from Cumberland. I asked about 

* Lord Duncannon, the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough j 
was created Baron Duncannon in the peerage of the United Kingdom 
in 1834, and succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Bessborough in 1844 
in the peerage of Ireland. He married Lady Maria Fane, daughter 
of the loth Earl of Westmorland. 



514 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

the relative number of Catholics, and he said if I had 
been at their chapel at lo, I should have seen about 
three times as many. ... 

" Having refreshed nature by a cheerful slice of 
cold stewed beef, Duncannon and I sallied forth on 
foot, but w^ith a couple of horses behind, in case we 
wanted them. He took me first through the village 
[Piltown]. ... I ought to apologise for calling it a 
village, for indeed I believe it is a ' town ' ; but be [it] 
what it may, it is perfect. I went into the school, where 
I found four of the Miss Ponsonbys sitting on one 
side of a school desk, in different, distinct parts of it, 
and with a little party of 5 or 6 or 7 little boys and 
girls sitting opposite to each of them, under examina- 
tion as to their catechism, &c., &c. I never saw a 
more well-behaved, attentive, and yet more cheerful 
exhibition of tuition. Duncannon took me into the 
dispensary — an institution of course built by himself. 
Presiding over it was a most strikingly sharp, in- 
telligent-looking woman, with four daughters — the 
eldest grown up — as straight as arrows, very well 
dressed, and with the best of manners. — 'That family,' 
said Duncannon, as we left the house, * Lady Dun- 
cannon found living literally in a ditch, ill, too, of a 
fever, of which the father and two of the children 
died.' — This practice of living in ditches, with some 
thatchwork over them, was very common when Dun- 
cannon first came here, but Lady Duncannon has 
found out every family of the kind, and they are now 
all housed, and very nicely, too. The dispensary 
family of course have the house they live in for 
nothing. The mother's salary is £2. a year ; all the 
girls have been taught to work, and either make their 
own cloaths or make for others, or both : but the 
result is, the whole establishment appears most happy 
and cleanly, well cloathed and, I suppose, well fed, I 
need not say they are Catholics. . . . 

"In leaving the village, we took a turn towards 
the more mountainous and, as you should suppose, 
less civilised parts; but, tho' the country is very 
populous and, as you leave Piltown, more and more 
decidedly Catholic, yet we found in all the groups of 
people assembled about their chapels or cottages the 
same marked civility. . . . Upon the slope of a hill 



1828.] LORD HUTCHINSON. 515 

and in a very nice plantation Duncannon said : — ■' The 
Catholic priest lives there ; I should like to say a 
word to him. Would you mind going with me?' — 
' Quite the reverse, my dear,' says I ; so through we 
went, and a rummish, dirty house we found. A 
slatternly kind of girl told us he was at home, and in 
we went and found him and his coadjutor just going 
to sit down to dinner. . . . The principal was a jolly- 
looking, pot-bellied, intelligent little fellow as you 
will see, tho' somewhat snuffy and dirty, with as 
perfect [illegible] manners as you can find. He is 
quite at home with Duncannon, and comes and dines 
here. . . . 

" 1 walked thro' the village of Piltown with Dun- 
cannon, and I defy anything in the most civilised 
district of England to surpass it in neatness, comfort 
and really ornament — begun, of course, and mainly 
promoted by Lord and Lady Duncannon during the 
three years they have lived in Ireland, but zealously 
assisted and acted upon by all about of all descriptions. 
I never in any spot saw so marked a proof of a rapidly 
spreading civilisation ; and yet this is only four miles 
from Carrick, one of the most lawless towns in 
Tipperary. . . . Oh ! the English absentees from their 
Irish properties — what they might have done here by 
their influence and without Irish prejudices. But I am 
now becoming a bore. . . . Lady Duncannon shines 
here ; she is devoted to the place, likes nothing so 
much as living here, and spends her time mostly in 
the village at her diff'erent institutions. Duncannon 
took me into one of her newly made publick works-— 
a fives court, where a capital game was carrjdng on by 
the Irish bo3'S of the village," 

From Bessborough Mr. Creevey went to Cork and 
Killarne}'', whence his letters to Miss Ord continued 
abundant as ever, but chiefly deal with descriptions 
of scenery. The following, written when on a visit to 
Lord Hutchinson, his friend of the old Regency days, 
gives a glimpse of a district less happ}- than that about 
Bessborough, 



5l6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cll. XX. 

'" Knocklofty, Oct. i, 1S28. 

"Well, I got here yesterday about four and found 
Hutch really, I think, not altered a tittle. ' Well, my 
dear Creevey, I'm delighted to see you. What a lucky 
fellow you are: I've got nine ladies to meet you.' 
However, as it was, only four came — Lady Hawarden, 
two daughters and a sister. . . . Lady H. was lively 
and natural enough, but I had rather severe work 
with her sister and a daughter, between whom I sat. 
. . . After dinner you may be quite sure I stuck to 
Hutch like a leech for information and his opinion upon 
the present state of things. . . . What a difference in 
districts! At Besborough — only 17 Irish miles from 
here, Duncannon has not an apprehension, and during 
the rebellion of 1798 that part ofWaterford took no 
part in the game of the Killarney district, tho' so near 
Bantry Bay. Here we are in the heart of the most 
disaffected part of Ireland, and a man of any property 
has a language and a creed in conformity to it. 

" ' My dear Creevey,' said Hutchinson, * those 
rascals the Orange Protestants and the fools of 
Catholics who [illegible^ the Association in Dublin, 
will bring us to blows. Lord Anglesey*^ is already 
acting upon it and calling in all the small bodies of 20 
or 30 troops scattered up and down the country, 
because, in case of accident, they would be sure to be 
sacrificed.' — 'Well,' says I, 'what is your nostrum for 
settling all this? Would Catholic emancipation do 
it ? ' — ' I'll tell you, my dear Creevey, what it would 
do. First, it is a most disgraceful thing that Irish 
contemptible nonsense should be made the foundation 
of such bad passions. It is only common justice that 
we should all be on one footing. In this country the 
Catholicks are 50 to i : in property we are 20 to their 
I. Let us start fair as to laws, and I have 2i just cause 
to embark in ' and my mind is quite made up to fight 

* Lord Anglesey, who lost a leg in command of the cavalry at 
Watei'loo, was no coward, yet he wrote in this year to warn the 
Government that they were on the verge of civil war in Ireland, and 
advised concession. The Duke of Wellington, though he had made 
up his mind with Peel for Catholic emancipation, recalled Anglesey 
from the Lord Lieutenancy, and appointed in his place the Duke of 
Northumberland, a consistent opponent of emancipation. 



iSz8.] POWER OF KILFANE. 5 17 

them in defence of my property; but 1 don't like 
fighting in an unjust cause. If we do come to blows, 
assisted by the English government I know we shall 
beat them, and all will be over in a month ; but from 
that day no Protestant gentleman can live in his 
country house. He must live in a town for safety, 
and England must have 20,000 more troops here than 
she has at present, eh ! My dear fellow, what a state 
of things for a nation at peace. What would it be 
in war ? ' 

" He and Duncannon are both agreed about the 
Maynooth priests. This was a piece of Pitt's handi- 
work, to have these chaps educated in a Catholic 
college at home, to escape foreign contagion ; and they 
turn out the lowest and most perfidious villains going, 
whereas old Magra and a priest of iJ'/oo a year at 
Clonmel, whom Hutch praises most profusely, are of 
French education, and have all the good manners, at 
least, of that [illegible] nation. . . . Oh, I forgot, too, 
that Hutch gave me another good effect of Catholic 
emancipation : it would separate those of property iri 
matters of the government." 

"Kilfane, 4 Oct., 1828. 

". . . We came over here yesterday in an open 
carriage, 20 miles over the mountains in torrents of 
rain. . . . Mrs. Power is poor old Grattan's niece— his 
sister!s daughter. Besides this, she is cousin to the 
great Irish wit. Chief Justice Bushe, whose estate and 
residence join hers ; and who, if you come to that, has 
been over here to see me this morning. . . . You don't 
know, perhaps, that no man has more reputation in 
Ireland as a wit and Liberal than this Chief Justice 
Bushe; and yet old Hutch, when he found I was going 
to Kilfane, was pleased to say : — ' Then j'-ou will see 
my cousin Bushe. He is a man of great wit; he 
knows no law, and is false as hell.'" 

" Kilfane, Oct. 5. 

". . . Now I have seen a real Irish Protestant 
church. When 1 entered it, two parsons were sitting 
in a row at the reading desk — one, the rector and 
Archdeacon of Ossor}- — the other his curate. We 



5l8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

were 1 5 company from the house and 4 from the Chief 
Justice's. Duncannon and Lady Duncannon, man and 
maid were there, and, so help me God ! not a soul else. 
The parish is a large and populous one, but without a 
single Protestant in it except these two families — na}^ 
not even amongst their servants. Mr. Power's steward 
or warder officiates as clerk. The living is ij'soo a 
year : the Catholic coadjutor or priest has £^0 ! . . " 

" Besborough, 5th Oct, 

"Well, my visit to Hutch really was charming. 
Take him altogether — the very prominent parts he 
has filled in life, in all quarters and upon all subjects, 
coupled with the genuine simplicity and honesty with 
which he communicates his knowledge — he is by far 
the most interesting and agreeable man I know. . . . 
His position is very different from that of Duncannon. 
Here it is all quietness ; he — Hutch — tho' only 17 miles 
off, is in the very centre of disaffection. It is not sur- 
prising, under such circumstances, that he feels more 
strongly the present state of Ireland, and is less 
sanguine as to even Catholic emancipation setting it 
right. . . . His notion, however, is that having land 
at greatly reduced rents and no tythes is a feeling 
pervading the great Catholic body of the people, and 
encreasing daily. Education (he said) has done grea.t 
harm, for it is turned to no useful purpose, and with 
a greatly overcharged population, and comparatively 
no occupation for it, it produces nothing but specu- 
lation upon their own condition and the means of 
amending it. The murder of his own tenant, a mile 
and a half only from his house, was well calculated 
to make a most unfavorable impression upon him 
against the Catholics. The particulars were these. 
A tenant of his was in arrear ^^700, and without any 
means of discharging it, except as far as his stock 
would go. Hutch said to him : — ' You are getting 
from bad to worse in this farm, and are evidently in- 
capable of managing it. I excuse you your arrear : 
take all your stock with you to a smaller farm of mine, 
and see what you can make of that' — He did so, and 
Hutch put into the larger farm a man out of the county 
of Cork — as respectable and humane a man as Ireland 



i828.] IMPRESSIONS OF IRELAND. 5^9 

could produce. But that did not save him from being 
most cruelly murdered, certainly by the suggestion 
and consent of the outgoing tenant. This in a village, 
too, where the murder lasted two hours, was known 
to be going on, and no one would help the unfortunate 
victim. Hutch has now taken the farm into his own 
hands. ... 

"Still, with all these feelings and impressions of 
Lord Donoughmore, when we got Lord Anglesey's 
proclamation at breakfast yesterday against these 
Catholic assemblages in towns, he said: — 'I am damned 
sorry, Creevey, for this measure of Anglesea. He 
wrote to me a fortnight ago, asking my advice upon 
the subject, and I gave it — to let them alone. I have 
since been in communication with the Catholic bishop 
of the diocese, and received his positive assurance 
last night that these meetings were at an end. These 
villains of Orangemen will now very naturally con- 
clude that this is a measure and an avowed opinion 
of the Government against the Catholics, and will be 
more eager to begin the work of blood than ever.' . . . 

"Amongst the opinions with which Lord Hutchinson 
favored me whilst I was with him were the following 
— 'Who do you dine with at Dublin, Creevey, when 
you are there ? ' — ' Why,' says I, ' Blake, I think, is my 
particular patron.' — 'Ah,' said he, 'he is a very agree- 
able fellow, but take care of him. There is not a 
greater lyar in all Dublin, and he's as hollow as a 
drum.' — 'Then,' says I, 'there's Mr. Corry of Merrion 
Square, who is mighty attentive to me.' — 'Ah,' says 
he, * Secretary to the Linen Board, and wants to in- 
trigue himself into Gregory's place as Under-secretary 
of State — he's a very good comedian, that fellow ; I 
don't know any other merit he has.'" 

''Kingstown, 7 Oct., 182S. 

" My dearest Bessy, 

" Don't I put you in mind of Mungo — ' Mungo's 
here, Mungo's there, Mungo's everywhere.' Well, 
before I say a single word about Molly Payne or any- 
one else, ... I must enlighten you upon the imme- 
diate causes of the present crisis ol this countr}^ 
Remember, it is no vague theory of my own. Lord 

2 N 



S20 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

Donoughmore is my historian; he was a principal 
actor in what I am about to state, and, what is more, 
he is the only surviving one. , . . He was observing 
to me that the English government never took any 
measures respecting Ireland except when pushed into 
it ; and then they always took the wrong one, as they 
did when the 405, election franchise was granted. — 'Tell 
me,' says I, ' about that ; ' — and to the best of my belief 
he spoke as follows. . . . ' In the year 1792 the Catholics 
of Ireland presented a petition to the Irish House of 
Commons, praying for a qualified franchise in the 
election of members of Parliament. Five or six days 
after it was presented, David Latouche moved that 
such petition should be taken off the table and out of 
the House, upon the avowed ground of the audacity 
of its prayer. The House divided — for Latouche's 
motion 208 — against it 25. Forbes and I were tellers. 
Forbes was as honest a fellow as ever lived, and 
Grattan was always a stout fellow to act with ; so we 
three consulted together, and we summoned some of 
the leading Catholics of Dublin to meet us. Keogh, 
a silk mercer, and a very rich man, was our principal 
[illegible]. He was a damned clever fellow, and the 
only Catholic of courage I ever saw. We told them 
that, as Catholics, they had received an insult from 
the House of Commons ; they ought never to submit 
to that ; we, as their friends and advocates, felt our- 
selves in the same situation, and were determined not 
to put up with it. We said the thing to be done was 
for the Catholics of Ireland to send delegates to Dublin 
to agree with us and amongst themselves what step 
they meant to take next. But the Catholics we had 
summoned were all frightened, and said it would never 
do. Keogh alone stood firm with us, and we said it 
should do ; and it was settled that letters should be 
sent into all the provinces summoning them to send 
their delegates to Dublin. 

" ' During the autumn of this year I went to see 
La Fayette, and to look at the French armies. I 
desired my brother Donoughmore to act for me with 
the Catholics in my absence. When he took the 
business up, he was told by Keogh that the Catholics 
in Cork and other parts of Munster were very shy, 
and would not send any delegates ; upon which my 



1828.] I LORD DONOUGHMORE'S RECOLLECTIONS. 52I 

brother went down, and went round every chapel 
and saw every priest in Munster, and eventually 300 
delegates made their appearance in Dublin. When 
they had assembled there, they were affraid of having 
any publick meetings, and told my brother they would 
be taken up ; to which he said they should not — that 
he would stand between them and the government. 
They met, and agreed to present the same petition to 
the King that they had presented to the Irish Parlia- 
ment. 

"'My brother waited upon Hobart, then Secretary 
for Ireland, and asked what he meant to do with the 
Catholic delegates now assembled in Dublin. Hobart 
said — " Put them down by force : " — to which my 
brother said — " You dare not ! but if you have any 
conciliatory measure to propose to them, I offer my- 
self as the channel : " and so they parted. 

'"A short time after, Hobart sent for my brother, 
and asked to see the petition. My brother said : — 
" You shall see the petition, but you shall not forward 
it to the King, because you are their enemy." So 
they selected Lord French, Keogh, Burn, Bellew and 
Devereux as their delegates to go to London and 
present their petition to the King. Grattan and I met 
them there to keep them up to their mark, and to see 
that they did not betray their cause. We found that 
Pitt and Dundas, after two or three interviews with 
these delegates, said they should advise the prayer of 
their petition being granted, and that the qualification 
should be 40s. 

*' ' Upon this, Grattan and I asked to see Dundas, 
and we had different interviews with him, in which we 
stated that the Catholics, in asking for a qualified 
franchise, had never thought of less than ;^20 a year^ 
and that they would be content even with ;^50. We 
urged again and again the impolicy of so low a fran- 
chise ; and all we could get from Dundas was that it 
must be the same as it was in England. And so in 
1793, the very same Parliament that the ye;;ar before 
would not permit the Catholic petition, praying for a 
qualified franchise, to lie upon their table, now was 
made to give them the 40s. franchise.' 

" Well, now for the modern priesthood. 

"'When Pitt established the college at Maynooth,* 



522 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX, 

said Lord Donoughmore, ' he gave to Ireland a re- 
publican priesthood. Formerly it required some 
money to educate candidates for orders in foreign 
countries, so that they were necessarily Catholic 
gentlemen's sons ; and they returned from France, 
Spain or Portugal with the manners of gentlemen and 
strict monarchical principles. But from the time that 
these priests are educated at Dublin for 7iothmg, people 
of any property no longer send their sons there, and 
the College is filled with people from the very ranks 
of the population — farmers' sons, &c. The effect of 
this is visible to every one. A priest of the old school 
lives at Clonmel, whom I can trust or act with as I 
would with my brother ; but none of the young ones 
from Maynooth will have anything to do with me ; and 
these rascals are always caballing against the old set, 
and trying to get the nomination to bishopricks into 
their own hands. 

" ' . . . Now, at last, Ireland is enjoying the blessings 
thus bestowed upon her by Pitt and Dundas — an 
ultra-popular franchise and a republican priesthood, 
given to the most bigoted nation in Europe, with a 
population of six to one against the Protestants. This 
Pitt is, forsooth, "the pilot that weathered the 
storm." ... 

" ' You don't know Spring-Rice,* alias Jack the 
Painter ; he is the least-looking shrimp, and the 
lowest-looking one too, possible. . . . He does not 
look above five or six and twenty. He is very clever 
in conversation, tells his stories capitally, like a man 
of the world in great practice, without any vulgarity, 
and never overcharging them ; but as for the interest 
he takes about Ireland — I am quite sure my old shoe 
feels as much. He did everything but say it, that to 
be a King's Counsel was as much the right of a 
Catholic as a Protestant, and that he would goad 
Catholic Ireland into resistance till his object was accom- 
plished! 

" I caught my friend Norman Macdonald's eye 
whilst this harangue was going on . . . and in walking 

* At that time Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, 
afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer 1835-39 ; created Baron Mont- 
eagle in 1839 ; died 1866. 



i82S.] IRISH SOCIETY. 523 

home together we both agreed that a more barefaced 
scoundrel had never been exhibited to us." 

"Dear Dublin, Oct. 12. 
". . . Yesterday I dined at that attached friend 
from my infancy — Mr. Corry of Merrion Square, and 
had the honor of making the acquaintance of Mr. Shiel. 
The others were Surgeon-General Philip Crampton, 
who is the Castle man-of-fashion in all Lord-Lieuten- 
ancies, and whom the good sense of Dublin has Xtened 
' Flourishing Phil,' and there never was a happier 
name. . . ." 

"Kingstown, Oct. 13. 

", . . My eye ! the quantity of people I saw yester- 
day and the day before that I knew, who pressed me 
to come and see them, or to visit others they would 
write to. Certainly, there is nothing like this Irish 
civility and hospitality. To think of Lord Plunket 
coming up, shaking hands and apologising for not 
having called on me as he was only in town for a few 
hours to attend a Privy Council. . . . I'm very sorry 
I could not accept Grattan's invitation for yesterda}'-. 
. . . Then the Knight of Kerry, who franks this, has 
written to Lord Landaff, saying he has nearly per- 
suaded me to visit him at Thomastown — the place 
described by Swift. . . ." 

"Lyons, co. Kildare [Lord Cloncurry's], 15th Oct., 1828. 

"... I arrived here on Monday, and found Lord 
and Lady William Paget, Lord and Lady ErroU, Lord 
Forbes, and three or four other men. My eye ! how 
Lady Erroll puts me in mind of her mother — Acting 
Nell or Miss Hoyden. We became kind of cronies 
from the very first minute. If you come to that — 
Lady William Paget and I were very fair too, to say 
nothing of the civilities to me of the young men their 
husbands. . . . The Angleseys did not come till 
yesterday. Greatly to my annoyance I sat next to 
her at dinner. The young men, Erroll and Co., made 
me do so, the Duke of Leinster not having arrived, as 
he always walks out to dinner, however distant. He 
(did not arrive till it was at least half over. Our Lord- 



524 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

Lieutenant * was as gracious as possible— gave me 
his opinion about Ireland last night in the most un- 
reserved manner . . . that it was his firm opinion 
that if the Irish people had but justice done them, 
they would be a happy and prosperous nation." 

•' Kilfane, Oct. 23. 

". . . Lady Duncannbn stated her intention of 
going to the meeting at Kilkenny, to my great sur- 
prise, and, as I thought, Duncannon would rather she 
had not. However, in her quiet way I saw she was 
resolved ; and accordingly she, Mr. Power, Mr. Tighe 
of Woodstock and myself embarked after breakfast in 
a decayed old family coach of Mr. Power's, that is 
never used for any other purpose than that of convey- 
ing him and his brother foxhunters to cover. Dun- 
cannon rode, according to his custom. The meeting 
was in an immense Catholic chapel, which was 
crowded to excess. A great portion of its interior 
was covered with a platform for the speakers and the 
gentlemen interested in the business. It being known 
that Lady Duncannon was coming, we were met by a 
manager at the chapel door, who told her a place was 
reserved for her upon the platform. , . . There were 
women without end in the galleries. I was my lady's 
bottle-holder and held her cloak for her the whole 
time ; not that she wanted my assistance, for I never 
saw such pretty attentions as were shewn her, all the 
day. . . . We knew, of course, that Duncannon was 
to be voted into the chair, and as he could not be so 
without making a speech, she. was nervous to the 
greatest degree — publick speaking being quite out of 
his line. However, he acquitted himself to admiration 
and to the satisfaction of all ; and upon m}^ saying to 
her : — ' Come ! we are in port now : nothing can be 
better than this,' — she said — ' How surprised I am 
how well he is speaking ! ' and then, having shed some 
tears, she was quite comfortable and enjoyed every- 
thing extremely, till the meeting adjourned till the next 
day. ... It was a prodigious day for Duncannon, for, 
with the exception of rower and Tighe, not one of 

* The Marquess of Anglesey, 



I828.] DAN O'CONNELL. 525 

the Protestant gentry present gave Duncannon a 
vote at the last election, nor did they ever attend a 
Catholic meeting before, though always Liberal, but 
they went with the Ormonde family, . . . There was 
one speech made that in point of talent far surpassed 
all the rest. The speaker was a Protestant squire of 
large fortune from the county of Wexford, Boyce by 
name. . . . O'Connell is far too dramatic for my taste, 
and yet the nation is dramatic and likes it ; and, if 
you come to that, even poor old Grattan was highl}^ 
ornamental too. Then I became far more tolerant 
about O'Connell from what I saw of him on Tuesda}^ 
at our dinner. He has a very good-humoured counte- 
nance and manner, and looks much more like a Kerry 
squire (which, in truth, he and his race are) than a 
Dublin lawyer. Then Bushe told me on Monday that 
he [O'Connell] was at the head of the Bar, and 
deservedly so, and that if he (the Chief Justice) had a 
suit at law, he would certainly employ him. This, 
you know, makes a great case for your green-handker- 
chief vasin. Then his face is such a contrast to that of 
the little spiteful, snarling Shiel. 

*' You can form no notion of the intense attention 
paid by the audience of all ages and of all degrees to 
what was going on ; it seemed to be purely critical, 
without a particle of fanaticism. On the floor of the 
chapel, in front of the platform, the commonest people 
from the streets of Kilkenny were collected in great 
numbers ; and if a publick speaker in the midst of his 
speech was at all at a loss for a word, I heard the 
proper word suggested from 5 or 6 different voices of 
this beggarly audience. . . . Yet a better behaved 
and more orderly audience could not possibly have 
been collected. . . . 

" When the dinner was announced . . . there was 
a great body of as well-bred gentry as I ever saw 
collected together. . . . When I mention that the 
tickets were £1 155. each, and the company 200, you 
may imagine it was not bad company. ... I never 
in my life saw a more agreeable, harmonious meeting 
— full of life, and yet no drunkenness, tho' we sat 
without a single departure till one. . . . My friend 
Mr. Power appeared in a new character to me that 
night — I mean as a speaker, and a better one (for his 



526 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

situation) 1 never in my life heard. It has been justly 
said by someone that 'no man has seen Ireland who 
has not seen John Power;' and so say I. ... I have 
had this letter in my pocket since Monday, as I could 
not draw upon Duncannon for franks in the midst of 
his constituents, who wanted them." 

Mrs. Taylor to Mr. Creevey. 

" Howick, I St Nov. 

". . . We came here ten days ago, and shall remain 
two days longer. We found them all well, Ly. Grey 
looking better than I have ever seen her for some 
time, and he is, I think, grown younger and better 
looking than ever I saw him. But I am sorry to say 
that in my opinion Brougham will regain his old 
influence over him. He read me a letter from him 
about the Whigs and the King's health, exactly as if 
no misunderstanding had ever existed. In short, if 
Lady Grey does not prevent it, everything will be 
forgotten ; but she and I perfectly agree about him, 
and I hope her. influence will prevail. Lord Grey 
really makes me angry, after the way he has been 
treated." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Woodstock, Kilkenny [Mr. Tighe's], Nov. 3rd. 

"... I really think a more worthy, amiable and 
obliging young person is not to be found than this 
Lady Louisa Tighe.* I had heard from every one 
before how much beloved she was by all around her, 
and I have no doubt it is so. She is quite in Lady 
Duncannon's line as to her devotion to her poorer 
nibbers,^ and quite as successful, but then I daresay 
Mrs. Tighe had done much, and there has always been 
a resident family here. . . She tells me her sister Lady 

* Fifth daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond ; married in 1825 
the Right Hon. W. F. Tighe of Woodstock. It has often been told of 
this lady that she buckled the Duke of Wellington's sword-belt when 
he left her mother's ball-room on the morning of Quatre-Bras ; but 
this she always emphatically denied. She died 2nd March, 1900. 

t Neighbours. ... 



lS28.] THE TIGHES OF WOODSTOCK. 527 

Sarah* in America has 6 children and Lady Maryt 
at the Cape four. . . . She [Lady Louisa] has a plain 
face, but a most agreeable expression in it. She read 
[prayers] uncommonly well last night, which I was 
surprised at, as their education was never considered 
of the best. . . . We are to have the Lord knows who 
to-day in the way of company to stay in the house ; 
amongst others, Fred Berkeley t and his wife, who is 
a sister of Lady Louisa's. They come from Cork, 
where he has a ship, 

" What think you of old Dowr. Richmond being 
here for 3 months, and never once during the time 
speaking to Tighe ? Was there ever such impu- 
dence ? He being, not only the most gentleman- 
like, well-bred person possible, and evidently he and 
his wife the happiest [couple] with each other. All 
the iiibbers, of which there are shoals, say his be- 
haviour under this outrage was perfect. Do you know 
that this is the house from which those chiennes Lady 
Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, the heroines of 
Llangollen, escaped to that retreat they have occu- 
pied ever since. Lady Eleanor Butler,§ aunt to the 

* Second daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond ; married in 181 5 
to General Sir Peregrine Maitland, G.C.B., and died in 1873. 

t Eldest daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond ; married Sir 
Charles Fitzroy, K.C.B., and died in 1847. 

X Afterwards Admiral the Right Hon. Sir Maurice Frederick 
Berkeley, G.C.B., created Baron Fitzhardinge in 1861 ; married Lady 
Charlotte Lennox, 6th daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond, and died 
in 1867. 

§ Youngest daughter of the i6th Earl of Ormonde [de jure]. 
Writing from Llangollen to his son on 24th August, 1829, Mr. John 
Murray has the following : — 

"We had a great treat yesterday in being invited to introduce 
ourselves to the celebrated Miss Ponsonby, of whom you must have 
heard as becoming early tired of fashionable life, and having with- 
drawn, accompanied by a kindred friend, Lady Eleanor Butler, to a 
delightful, and at that period unfrequented, spot a quarter of a mile 
from Llangollen, overhanging the rapid and beautiful river Dee. 
Lady Eleanor died there a few months ago at the age of 91, after 
having lived with Miss Ponsonby in the same cottage upwards of 50 
years. It is very singular that the ladies intending to retire from the 
world, absolutely brought all the world to visit them ; for, after a few 
years of seclusion, their strange story was the universal subject of 



528 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX; 

? resent Lord Ormonde, got over their castle wall that 
have seen in the town of Kilkenny, broke her arm 
and was caught. When she escaped the second time, 
she and Miss Ponsonby found their way here. 
Tighe's grandmother, Lady Betty Ponsonby (that 
had been) from Besborough, being then mistress of 
Woodstock, concealed the runaways till they and a 
faithful housemaid from the place got away in safety 
to their {illegible]. The said Miss Ponsonby has a 
brother living in the county now, having changed 
his name to Walker for a fortune of ;^i 5,000 a year. 
His wife seems to have been quite as neat an article 
as his sister or her friend Lady Eleanor Butler ; for, 
as they were riding out on horseback one day, she 
pointed out a good stiff hurdle to him, and said— 
'Now, go over that to please me.' To which he 
replied — ' I thank you ; but I am not going to break 
my neck for any such nonsense.' — ' Then,' said she, 
' you are not the man for me, and iiyou won't go over 
It, 1 will : ' and over it she flew. To this hour, he has 
never seen her face since : so Kilkenny's the county 
for fun and fancy. ..." 

EaH of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

" London, 7th Nov. 

.«.,:.'<,. .> Nothing has transpired as to the D[uke] of 
W[eliington's] intentions about Ireland, for a very 
good reason, 1 believe — viz., that he has no intentions 
whatever on the subject. The reports about the 

conversation, and there has been no person of rank, talent and import- 
ance in any way who did not procure introduction to them. All that 
was. passing in the world, they had it fresh as it arose, and in four 
hours' conversation with Miss Ponsonby one day, and three the next, 
i found that she knew everything and everybody, and was, at the age 
of 80, or nearly so, a most inexhaustible fund of entertaining instruc- 
tion and lively communication. The cottage is remarkable for the 
taste of its appropriate fitting up with ancient oak, presented by 
different friends, from old castles and monasteries, &c., none of it of 
less antiquity than 1200 years [!]. She declared to me that during the 
whole fifty years she never knew a moment that hung heavy upon her, 
and no sorrows, but from the loss of friends" [Smiles'Si^<?7««'«>J>'i!/ 
y^hn Mt{rray,\\. T^oi^. --.■■•■ -'" ^-^ 



i828.] CREEVEY'S INDISCRETION. 529 

King's health have no other origin than the iTi3^stery 
kept up about him. You will soon hear of him as 
well as ever. In the meantime he will attend to no 
business, nor sign anything. Among others, Berkeley * 
cannot get his commission signed, . . ." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Dear Dublin, Nov. 8th, 

"Oh dear, oh dear! this Ireland is rather too 
hospitable : not that I was inebriated yesterday, but 
still it was rather severe. A better dinner I never 
saw than at our Guards mess, nor three and twenty 
more ornamental, well-bred young men, Jimmy 
Cameron included, I was more in love with the army 
than ever. We drunk a good deal of wane, but by no 
means too much, and drunk our coffee, when some 
young Hussars who were my neighbours (visitors 
like myself) withdrew, and two Guardsmen came up 
to me. The name of one was Fludyer, and they 
were evidently bent upon a jaw with me ; so what 
could I do, you know, but take another glass of claret 
with them ; which I did, and we parted the best of 
friends. . . . But this was by no means the end of 
the campaign ; for, upon going into the great coffee- 
room of this hotel, as is my custom, there were three 
young Irishmen over their bottle, indulging in songs 
as well as wine, and nothing would serve them but 
my joining their party. Now upon my soul and 
body, I was not the least drunk when I did so, sus- 
picious as it may seem ; but there was something irre- 
sistibly droll in their appearance. Then they would 
know my name, and then they knew me both by name 
and fame ; and they proved to me they did so. They 
sung songs and I sat with them till near two o'clock, 
and never fellow was more made of than I was by my 
unknown friends. Ah! Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomas: 
you are a neat article when left to yourself . . . Now 
let me say this once for all, and I do so from the 
bottom of my heart. I would rather trust myself 
with Irish people than with any other in the whole 
world — be they who they may, Betty. . . ." 

* Lord Sefton's 2nd son, the Hon. Berkeley Molyneux, 



530 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. , 

! 

"Dublin, 15th Nov. 

". . . I trust you see our Dan O'Connell has 
denounced poor Barny, altho* he is Duke of Norfolk, 
for presuming to say he would give any securities 
as the price of settling the Catholic question. A 
greater piece of folly was never committed than this 
of Barny — so uncalled for — and not to feel sure that 
O'Connell, in the present plenitude of his power oyer 
Catholic Ireland, would never submit to this question 
being settled by any one but himself, and especially 
by an English Catholic, who in truth is nobody. Then 
all this is the more extraordinary in the Duke, because 
he has told me again [and again] that the great point 
was for our government and the Pope to settle this 
question of securities without any of the Irish nation 
— clergy or laity — knowing a word of what was going 
on ; for, if thej^ did, they would defeat all such arrange- 
ments : and then the blockhead is the very man to put 
the whole matter in a flame by broaching the very 
subject that, according to himself, could only be settled 
in private." 

"Dublin, Nov. 21. 

"... I was charmed with my day at my Lord 
Lieutenant's, notwithstanding the settled gloom of 
Lady Anglesey and the forbidding frowns of the 
Lady Pagets. The party at dinner and their position 
was as follows. Berkeley Paget * at the top : on his 
right, Chief Justice Bushe, Lord Plunket, a Lady Paget, 
Lord Anglesey, another Lady Paget, Lord Howth, Col. 
Thornhill. At the bottom — Burton, aide-de-camp and 
secretary, 3rd Lady Paget, Corry, 4th Lady Paget, 
Lord Francis Leveson,t Lady Anglesea, Lord Clanri- 
carde, Mr. Creevey, and Mr. Solicitor-General Dog- 
herty. I have left out somebody that I forget. Altho' 
I had never been introduced to Clanricarde J I threw 
off directly with—' The last time I had the pleasure 
of seeing you, my lord, was at the Race ball at 
Chelmsford.' — * Yes,' said he, ' and I hope I shall have 
the pleasure of seeing you there next year, too, for I 

* Younger brother of the Marquess of Anglesey. Died in 1842. 

t Created Earl of EUesmere in 1846. 

J Fourteenth Earl and ist Marquess of Clanricarde. Died in 1874. 



1828.] THE VICEREGAL LODGE. 531 

am steward, and I hope you'll patronise me.' — So it 
was all mighty well to be launched thus easily, and 
we discussed Ireland, and were quite one in our 
opinions. 

" I had no notion Lord Anglesey could have been 
so gay in manner : it was really quite agreeable to see 
him in such spirits. . . . During dinner, he said across 
the table to me : — ' Why, Mr. Creevey, you have quite 
taken root in Ireland.' — * I have been very much 
delighted with it, my lord,' I replied. — ' Have you 
seen Donoughmore lately ? ' — 'Not since I met your 
lordship at Lyons.' — * Have you been in the North at 
all?' — ' No, my lord, I had not courage to go into that 
disturbed part of Ireland. I prefer the tranquillity of 
the South.' Upon which the two Chief Justices were 
pleased to smile ; so did my Lord Lieutenant, and 
keeping his eyes fixed upon me he concluded : — 'Will 
you drink a glass of wine with me, Mr. Creevey ? ' — 
* With great pleasure, my lord ;' and I had the same 
favor shown me by the two Judges and Mr. Solicitor. 
So it was all mighty well, you know. 

"After a perfectly easy, conversational dinner, we 
drank coffee, had the billiard room open, and people 
playing and others walking about and jawing, just as 
they liked, I can't think how it was that, in talking 
of heat and cold in rooms. Lord Anglesey said he 
preferred the canopy of Heaven to any other cover- 
ing, ... to which I said I had been greatly surprised 
at a proof of that, when I saw him sitting out in the 
park at Brussells, 3 or 4 days after the battle of 
Waterloo. — 'Ah,' said he, 'did you see me? It was 
so certainly. I was at Madame [illegible'^ s house, and 
very kind to me they were.' — ' I knew your house too 
at Waterloo,' said I, ' and well remember the trees in 
the garden.' — 'Why, do you know,' said he, 'the 
people of that house have made the Lord knows what 
by people coming to see the grave of my leg which 
was buried in the garden ! ' and he said this in a 
manner as much as to say — 'What damned fools they 
must be ! ' 

" I had a good deal of jaw in private with Plunket 
during the evening ; and when I asked him his opinion 
as to anything being done in the approaching session 
about the Catholics, he gave a most decided one that 



532 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

there would ; but upon examining him closely, it was 
quite clear he thought so only because it ought to be 
so ; and I am convinced that neither he nor Lord 
Anglesey know one word from the Duke of Wellington 
as to what his opinion and intentions are upon this 
subject. . . . Betty, my dear, you were too hard upon 
me for my ingenuous folly in revealing my midnight 
revel here. I assure you I was not otherwise dis-^ 

f raced than as a silent observer of the 3 frolicksome 
rishmen. . . ." 

" Carton [The Duke of Leinster's], 25th Nov. 

" What a difference it makes when one has a room 
to write in with all one's little comforts about one. I 
never, to my mind, had one so made for me as my 
present one. It is a fat, lofty, square, moderate-sized 
room 071 the ground floor — French to the backbone in 
its furniture, gilt on the roof, gilded looking-glasses 
in all directions, fancy landskapes and figures in 
pannells, a capital canopy bed, furniture — white 
ground with bouquets of roses of all colours, and the 
bouquets as. large as a small hat. Armchairs ditto: 
chests of drawers, 2 cjuite new and might be from 
Paris. My .own escritoire in a recess with paper 
lighters before me of all colours, and in another corner 
of the room another recess that shall be nameless, 
through a door, quite belonging to itself and to no 
Other apartment; the whole to conclude with a charm- 
ing fire which woke me by its crackling nearly an 
hour ago, whilst my maid thought, of course, she was 
making it without waking the gentleman. ... I flew 
my kite at the Duke per Saturday's post. ... I left 
Dublin in my post-chaise about ^ past two — the 
distance 12 Irish miles, i.e. 15 English, and it was too 
dark when I arrived to see anything of the exterior, 
I was shown into a long, most comfortable library, 
with a door half open into a fat drawing-room, and 
was told his Grace should know I had come. Presently 
a gentleman and the Duke's two fine boys came in, and 
I soon found that the former was the parlez-vous tutor 
to the others. After a certain time, the Duke appeared : 
he was all kindness and good humor, as he always 
is, . . . After a good deal of jaw, and telling me they 



1 828.] CARTON. 533 

dined at half-past six, he conducted me himself to my 
bedroom, and would not have minded brushing my 
coat if I had wanted it. 

''All this time it appeared to me likely that I 
was the only stranger in the house : and what of 
that? Tant mieitx. . . . However, upon returning to 
the drawing-room, there were men there, and the 

Duke said — ' Captain (I forget his name) — Mr. 

Creevey : my brother Augustus Stanhope,* — Mr. 
Creevey : my Napoleon Mr. Henry. . . . Do you know 
Lord Seymour,t Mr. Creevey ? Do you know Lord 
Acheson i ? ' and in this way I was introduced to these 
youths. Augustus Stanhope is the one that was dis- 
missed the army by court martial for doing Lord 
Yarmouth out of a large sum at play. . . . Then 
entered the Duchess, and from the prettyness of her 
manner it was quite impossible not to feel at home 
with her from that moment ; but she is not nearly so 
pretty as I expected. . . . Well of course one of the 
quality lads handed her out : the others were on 
her other side, and I pitched my tent with my right 
ear to her,§ next Lord Seymour, and brought her into 
action in the first 3 minutes. She evidently was 
all for * de laugh,' and two more demure, negative 
striplings could not well be than her neighbours 
appeared. . . . They seemed somewhat astonished 
at the free and easy position that I took up ; how- 
ever I took the lead and kept it till we all went to 
bed at iij. . . . 

" This morning, breakfast punctually at ^ past nine 
. . . the nobility sprigs still mute, and everything to 
be done by Mr. Thomas. 

"After breakfast, I walked with the Duchess and 
her brother, and when the latter left us, she proposed 
showing me her cottage and flower-garden. . . . Whilst 
we were there, the Duke arrived with the lordlings, 
being on his way to show them Maynooth College, 

* Eleventh son of the 3rd Earl of Harrington, and brother of the 
Duchess of Leinster. 

t Eldest son of nth Duke of Somerset: succeeded as 12th Duke 
on his father's death in 1855. 

X Succeeded his father in 1849 as 3rd Earl of Gosford. 

§ Mr. Creevey was very deaf in the left ear. 



534 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XX. 

about a mile and a half (Irish) further on : so he said 
— 'Would you like to see it, Mr. Creevey?' — 'Very 
much,' said I, but then muttered something at our not 
having the Duchess. — ' O, a thousand thanks,' said she; 
' I am a great walker, and will walk there too : ' and 
so she did, and pretty well bespattered she was when 
we returned just now. 

" However, I have been thro' the college, and seen 
a good many of these 380 precious blackguards that 
are now in college there, and of all the disgusting 
concerns for filth the Maynooth business stands pre- 
eminent. And yet these are the men that are to guide 
and controul the whole Catholic population of Ireland. 
Maynooth Castle in its ruins is an immense concern. 
It was the residence of this family [the Fitzgeralds] 
and joins the ground which was let by the late Duke 
for the college. 

" In returning thro' the town of Maynooth, which 
belongs to the Duke entirely, I was sorry to see how 
inferior it was in neatness to Piltown and Lady Louisa 
Tighe's town ; nor did the Duchess seem to know any 
of the people at their doors as we passed. I have no 
doubt that both he and she are excellent people, but 
somehow they don't seem to have hit off the art of 
having a neat neighbourhood. And yet they both 
praise the Irish people extremely." 

" Kinmell, St. Asaph's [Mr. Hughes's], Nov. 29. 

" ' Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief ; 
Taffy in stupidity exceeds all belief.' 

Altho' he is so well and warmly clothed, what an 
inferior article he is to poor, ragged, dirty, sprightly 
Pat. ..." 



( 535 ) 



CHAPTER XXI. 

1829. 

The successive stages in the conversion of the Tory 
Government to Roman Catholic Emancipation have 
been abundantly discussed without bringing home to 
the apprehension of most people that, in truth, there 
were no such stages. The circumstances have been 
obscured by the recall of the pro-Catholic Lord 
Lieutenant, Anglesey, and the appointment of the 
anti-Catholic Lieutenant, Northumberland, but that 
had really no bearing upon the question. Anglesey 
had acted in what his old chief, the Duke of Welling- 
ton, considered an insubordinate manner, and was 
treated as relentlessly as Norman Ramsay had been 
dealt with after Vittoria. There was no question of 
ministerial policy involved ; the puzzle arises out of 
the Prime Minister acting with a total want of that 
ambiguity which usually envelopes ministerial acts. 
The victory of Daniel O'Connell and the Catholic 
Association over Vesey FitzGerald, appointed Pre- 
sident of the Board of Trade, in the election for County 
Clare, had convinced Wellington that relief could no 
longer be withheld from the Catholics. The position 
held by the Government ever since the question had 
driven Pitt out of office in 1801 must be abandoned; 
but he was too old a campaigner to allow the enem}' 

2 o 



53^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXI. 

to know the hour and order of evacuation. Peel was 
to be converted and the King be forced to consent, 
before the orders should be issued which, he knew, 
would breed mutiny in his own ranks. No sign should 
betray his purpose till all was prepared : the accus- 
tomed guards should be mounted — the regular sentries 
posted — till the very last moment. The appointment 
of the Duke of Northumberland in succession to Lord 
Anglesey was in accord with the spirit of a General 
Order which had never been suspended or revoked 
— No indulgence to Roman Catholics. It is the 
secrecy and suddenness of Wellington's movements 
which have perplexed historians, accustomed to the 
more tentative and tortuous ways of politicians. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Whitehall, Feby. 3, 1829. 

". . . Every one was up with the news of the day 
— that Wellington had decided to let the Catholics into 
Parliament. ... I have always, you know, been con- 
vinced that the Beau must and would do something 
upon this subject, and what it is to be we now must 
very shortly know. ..." 

" 5th. 
" Our only visitor last night was Sefton, who 
arrived about 12, bringing with him the correspon- 
dence between the Duke of Wellington and Lord 
Anglesey, which the latter had lent to Sefton to be 
returned the next morning at 11. He read it to 
Mrs. Taylor and me, and it was ^ past one before he 
had done. The Beau, according to custom, writes 
atrociously, and his charges against Lord Anglesey 
are of the rummest kind, such as being too much 
addicted to popular courses, ^6)m^ to Lord Clonciirry's, 
being too civil to Catholic leaders, not turning Mr. 
O'Gorman Mahon out of the commission of the peace, 
&c., &c. There are letters full of such stuff, and Lord 




DANIEL O'COXNELL, AI.P. 



YFofaccp. 536. 



1829.] CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 537 

Anglesey in his answers beats him easy in all ways. 
. . . The Whigs are quite as sore as the Brunswickers 
at this victory of the Beau over Prinney and his 
Catholic prejudices. They had arranged the most 
brilliant opposition for the approaching session, and 
this coup of the Duke's has blown up the whole 
concern. 

•^" At Brooks's last night the deceased poet Rogers 
came up to beg I would meet Brougham at dinner at 
his house on Wednesday." 

"6th. 
". . . It does Wellington infinite honor; the only 
drawback to his fame on this occasion is his silence to 
Anglesey as to his intentions ; but he has been jealous 
of his brother soldier playing the popular in Ireland, 
and so has sacrificed the man, while adopting his 
opinions." 

"7th. 

" Here is little Twitch, alias Scroop, alias Premier 
Duke, Hereditary Earl Marshal, who is sitting by my 
side and who reckons himself sure of franking a letter 
for you before the session closes. The removal of 
Catholic disabilities would permit the Duke of 
Norfolk to take his seat in the Lords." 

"nth. 
". . . 'Ra-ally,' as Mrs. Taylor would say. Peel 
makes a great figure.* His physick for the [Catholic] 
Association is as mild as milk, and for a year only. It 
is such a new and important feature in this Tory Revo- 
lution to have no blackguarding or calling names of 
any one. There begins to be an alarm about the Lords, 
but I have no doubt without foundation. It is clear to 
me from the Duke of Rutland's speech that he will 
ultimately support the Beau, and I have my doubts 
whether the Bishop of London f won't do so like- 
wise. . . . Lord Sefton has broke the bank at Crock- 
ford's two nights following. He tells me he carried 
off £7000.'' 

* As Home Secretary, Peel was responsible for the government of 
Ireland, which was then administered from the Home Office, 
t C. J. Blomfield. 



538 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXI. 

"i2th Feby., 1839. 

". . . Our party at the deceased poet's [Rogers] last 
night was his brother and living poet and wit — 
Luttrell, Sefton, Lord Durham, Burdett, Lord Robert 
[Spencer], Brougham and the Duke of Norfolk, and 
we had a merry day enough. ..." 

" Brooks's, Feb. 14. 

". . . There is nothing going forward except this 
reported visit of the Duke of . . . Are you aware 
that Captain Garth is the son of this Duke by 

Princess .* General Garth, at the suit of the 

old King, consented to pass for the father of this son. 
The latter, in every way worthy of his villainous 
father, has shown all the letters upon this occasion, 
including one of the King's. The poor woman has 
always said that this business would be her death. 
Garth asks ^^30,000 for the letters, and, to enhance 
their value, shews the worst part of them." 

"i8th. : 

". . . The Whigs are as sore as be damned at 
Wellington distinguishing himself and at Lord Grey's 
just panegyrick upon Peel the other night. A neat 
figure they [the Whigs] would have cut in such a 
storm ; but, to do them justice, they would never have 
attempted it. . . ." 

" March 2nd. 
"Now I wonder if Oggt is to be depended on. 
Our Whigs, who hate the Beau and Peel and Grey 
with all their hearts, and are mad to the last degree 
that the two former have taken the Catholick cause 
out of their own feeble and perfidious hands, and who 
are always croaking about the projected Bill as being 
sure to contain some conditions and provisions that 
will be quite inadmissible to the dear Liberals — the 
said Whigs are to-day more chopfallen than ever upon 
the visits that have been taking place the last two 

* Ona should hesitate to withdraw the veil from this ugly aftair, 
were it not that it has been freely discussed and made public property 
in the recently published letters of Madame de Lieven. 

t Lord Kensinsfton. 



1829.] THE GARTH SCANDAL. 539 

days by the Beau and Chancellor to Windsor, and 
then the Beau waiting upon the D. of Cumberland as 
soon as he came back. In short, it is settled amongst 
them that the Dutchess of Gloucester and D. of Cum- 
berland have made such an impression upon Prinney 
against the Pope, that he is considered as quite certain 
to be upon the jib ; and such is the supposed con- 
sternation of the Ministers, that Tommy Tyrrwhitt 
told me he had seen with his own eyes to-day Lord 
Ellenborough come into the Court of Chancery twice, 
go upon the Bench to the Chancellor, put his mouth 
close under his wig, and keep it there at least five 
minutes at a time. 

"So, having just met old Ogg in the street in 
spectacles, he having lost an eye since I last saw him, 
and after hearing an account of the different calamities 
affecting his life, property and character, we got to 
this Windsor gossip. So says Ogg in his accustomed 
manner — ' Damme ! I know exactly what it is all 
about, and if you promise never to mention my name, 
I'll tell you.' I need not observe that the condition 
he imposed upon rhe I should have gratuitous!}'' 
adopted, as the disclosure w^ould, with most, destroy 
my story. However, he swore he knew the facts of 
his own knowledge, and they are these. 

" Knight, a barrister of the Court of Chancery, has 
been advertising the Chancellor lately that on this 
day he should move for an injunction against Sir 
Herbert Taylor about Garth's letters, which have been 
placed in his hands under some agreement with Garth, 
and which the latter or his creditors wish to make 
more favorable for themselves ; ;^3000 a year for life 
and ;^io,ooo in hand were the considerations, but it is 
sought to make it ;2^i6,ooo in hand. Ogg adds that it is 
the fear of all this being made publick that has caused 
all these mutinies between the Beau and Prinney and 
Chancellor and D. of Cumberland. Ogg says, too, that 
he knows all the contents of these letters, and stated 
quite enough of them to account for all this Windsor 
hurry-scurry. . . . 

" Well, I had really a charming gay dinner at 
old Sally's * ^^esterday. Lady Sefton and her 2 eldest 

* Sarah, Marchioness of Salisbury. 



540 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXI. 

daughters, the young Lady Salisbury, Lord Arthur 
[Hill], Sefton, Henry [Molyneux], a Talbot, Hy. de 
Roos, Montgomery and Sebright. . . . Upon my 
word I was wrong about Lady Lyndhurst She has 
beautiful eyes and such a way of using them that 
quite shocked Lady Louisa and me. . . . Old Clare 
fairly rowed me last night, or affected to do so, for 
not coming to see her in Ireland. You know her son 
and his wife are parted, the latter giving as her reason 
for wishing it that she had only married him to please 
her mother, and that now she was dead there was no 
use in going on together. He has given her back 
every farthing of her fortune, which was ;^^o,ooo or 
;^6q,ooo." 

"3rd. 
"... I saw a good deal of young Lady Emily 
Cowper,* who is the leading favorite of the town 
so far. She is very inferior to her fame for looks, but 
is very natural, lively, and appears a good-natured 
young person." 

" 6th. 

"Well, the Whig croaking must end now. The 
Beau is immortalised by his views and measures as 
detailed by Peel last night. I certainly, for one, think 
it an unjust thing to alter the election franchise from 
405. tO;^io; but considering the perfection of every 
other part and the difficulty there must have been in 
bringing Prinney up to this mark, I should, were I 
in Parliament, swallow the franchise thing without 
hesitation ; and so I am happy to find a meeting of 
our Whigs at Burdett's to-day have agreed to do. . . . 
Only think of the old notion of the Veto being just 
abandoned. . . ." 

"loth. 

"Well, our 'very small and early party' last night 
[at Lady Sefton's] was quite as agreeable as ever; 
Dut I must be permitted to observe that, considering 
the rigid virtue of Lady Sefton and the profound 
darkness in which her daughters of from 30 to 
40 are brought up as to even the existence of vice, 

* Married in 1830 to the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, at that time 
Lord Ashley. 



1829.] A PARTY AT LADY SEFTON'S. S41 

the party was as little calculated to protract the 
delusion of these innocents as any collection to be 

made in London could well be. There were Mrs. F- 

L and Lord Chesterfield, who came together 

and sat together all night ; Lady E and the Pole 

or Prussian or Austrian — whichever he is — whom they 
call 'Cadland' because he beat the Colonel (Anson).* 
Anything so impudent as she, or so barefaced as the 
whole thing, I never beheld ; Princess Esterhazy and 

Lady , Lady and [Lord] Palmerston — in short, 

by far the most notorious and profligate women in 
London. . . . With respect to how Lord Grey and other 
people take the Catholic Bill or Pill, there is an in- 
creasing satisfaction in all the friends to the measure, 
and the ranks of the bigots are thinning. There is 
one damned thing, if it is persisted in, which is that 
O'Connell is not to be let into his present seat, but 
sent back to a new election under the new Bill. . . . 
When I was at Grey's on Sunday, he told me Burdett 
had just been with him upon this subject, and had 
urged him to speak to the Duke of Wellington about it. 
Not amiss in O'Connell and Burdett, considering that 
they had never consulted Grey before on any of their 
Catholic cookery. However, his answer was that he 
should do no such thing, for that, altho' there could be 
no doubt as to the abominable injustice of this case, yet 
as the Duke had never shown any disposition to com- 
municate with him upon this measure, it was not for 
him — Lord Grey — to begin any such communication. 
So much for Sefton and others, who will have it that 
Lord Grey must and will come into office. . . , 
Wellington was blooded yesterday, but is out to-day, 
and gone to face Winchilsea in the Lords." 

"Sulby, March 18. 

" Rather stiffish to-day, my dear ; it can't, of course, 
be age ! but going four and twenty miles on a hard 
road at a kind of hand gallop is rather shaking, j^-ou 
know, to those not used to it. . . . The men we have 
had here are principally Pytchley, which, in dandyism, 
are very second-rate to the Ouorn or Melton men. . . . 

* The Duke of Rutland's "Cadland" won the Derby in 1828, 
beating the King's horse '' The Colonel." 



542 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cii. XXI. 

Osbaldeston himself, tho' only 5 feet high, and in 
features like a cub fox, is a very funny little chap; 
clever in his way, very good-humored and gay, and 
with very good manners. ... I am very fond of all 
these lads being dressed in scarlet in the evening. It 
looks so gay." 

"19th. 
". . . Does your paper ever give you any light 
upon the old affair of Garth? Did it contain his 
affidavit ? You see it is now established in proof in 
a suit in Chancery that Sir Herbert Taylor had agreed 
to give Garth ;£"30oo a year for his life, and to pay 
his debts; and that, upon this being done, certain 
letters were to be given up to Taylor. In the mean- 
time they were deposited in Snow's bank in the joint 
holding of the said bankers and Mr. Westmacott, the 
editor of the Ap^ newspaper. . . . There is quite 
enough in this — Taylor being the purchaser and the 
price so monstrous, to make it quite certain the letters 
must contain great scandal affecting very great parties. 
. . . General Garth is still alive, and it was when he 
was extremely ill and thought himself quite sure of 
dying, that he wrote to young Garth, tellmg him who 
he was, explaining the part he — the General — had 
been induced to act out of respect and deference to 
the royal family. ... General Garth recovered un- 
expectedly, and applied to young Garth for the docu- 
ment ; but, I thank you ! they had been seen and read 
and deemed much too valuable to be given back 
again." 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

"Arlington St., . . . March 25th. 

". . . The King was delighted with the duel * and 
said he should have done the same — that gentlemen 
must not stand upon their privileges. . . ." 

" Stoke, I ith April. 

"... The King was very angry at the large 
majority [for the Catholic Relief Bill] and did not 

* Between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchilsea. 



1829.] INTRIGUES IN THE OPPOSITION. 543 

write the D. a line in answer to his express telling 
him of it. The Beau's troubles are not over yet. The 
distress in the countr}^ is frightful. Millions are 
starving, and I defy him to do anything to relieve 
them." 



Mr. Crcevey to Miss Ord. 

" Whitehall, May 28th. 
"... I went to the Park, but the review was over, 
so we only learnt that the Beau had had a fall from 
his horse, but was not hurt ; and in coming home here 
a little later who shd. I meet riding in a little back 
street near Coventry Street but the said Duke. So 
he stopt and shook hands. ... I said : — ' Well, upon 
my soul, you are the first of mankind to have accom- 
plished this Irish job as you have done, and I con- 
gratulate you upon it most sincerely. . . . You must 
have had tough work to get thro'.' — *Oh terrible, I 
assure 3''0u,' said he, and so we parted." 

"June 1st. 

". . . It is a well known fact that Lord Durham is 
doing all he possibly can to make Lord Grey act a 
part that shall force him into the Government, meaning 
in that event to go snacks himself in the acquisition of 
power and profit ; which, considering that he got his 
peerage by deserting Grey and by helping Canning to 
defeat Wellington, is consistent and modest enough ! 
So after dinner [at Lord William Powlett's] the levee 
being mentioned. Grey said in the most natural 
manner he would never go to another; upon which 
Lambton [Lord Durham] remonstrated with him 
most severely and pathetically, and George Lamb 
thought Grey was wrong ; but Grey held out firm as 
a rock — said that it was quite against his own opinion 
going the last time, but that he had been quite perse- 
cuted into it — that this last personal insult from the 
King in never noticing him was onl}^ one of a series 
of the same kind, and that for the future he should 
please himself by avoiding a repetition of them. You 
may easily fancy the amiability of Lambton's face at 
his avowal. . . . You see these impertinent and base 



544 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXI. 

renegade young Whigs have had their appetites for 
office if possible sharpened at present by Lord Rosslyn 
having just accepted the Privy Seal. . . . Rosslyn told 
me of it himself in the street on Saturday. ... I know 
that he accepted w^ith Lord Grey's concurrence, but I 
am equally sure, from Lord Grey's manner, that he 
thinks he ought not to have done so." 

"August 20th. 

". . . As you see only the Morning Post, I am 
afraid you are quite in the dark as to what is going 
on in France. . . . All are furious against the new 
Ministry, and with great reason. To think of making 
Bourmont the War Minister! He is the man who 
deserted from Bonaparte and came over to us the 
night before the battle of Waterloo.* General Gerard 
recommended him to Nap as a General of Division on 
that occasion, and said that he would pledge his life for 
his honor.'\ The deserter is now to be Minister for 
War, and will have to face Gerard as a member of the 
Chamber of Deputies ! . . . Even the old Ultras think 
the experiment puts the throne of Charles Dix in 
danger." 

" Knowsley, 26th September. 

"... I am half way thro' the 3rd volume of 
Bourrienne. Although my interest about Nap is 
greatly lessened by his wholesale use and destruction 
of mankind — not for the sake or defence of France, 
but for some ' lark ' of his own, to be like Csesar or 
Alexander, and for his damned nonsensical posterity 
that he is always after — then again he comes over me 
again by his talents, and by a kind of simplicity, and 
even drollery, behind the curtain whilst he is so 
successfully bamboozling all the world without. Don't 
suppose I am partial to him because when Bourrienne 

* It was on the morning of the 15th June, three days before 
Waterloo, that Bourmont deserted; and he went to Bliicher, not to 
Wellington. 

t The expression Gdrard used was that he would pledge his head : 
so when Gdrard reported Bourmont's treachery, the Emperor tapped 
Gerard playfully on the cheek, saying : — "Cette tete, done, c'est k moi, 
n'est ce pas ? " adding more gravely, " mais j'en ai trop besoin." 



1829.] FIRST TRIP ON THE RAILWAY, 545 

read poetry to him in Egypt he always fell asleep ! 
or because that at school he never was a scholar, 
Bourrienne beating him easily in Latin and Greek, 
but in mathematics he was first ; nor because no one 
spelt worse than he did, having alwa3^s a professed 
contempt for that noble art. Yet his compositions 
are of the first order." 

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the pro- 
motion of which Creevey had so stoutly opposed in 
committee of the House of Commons, was nearly 
finished, and about to be opened for traffic. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Knowsley, Nov. 1st, 1829. 

". . . You have no doubt in your paper reports of 
Huskisson's return to office. Allow me to mention a 
passage which Lord Derby read to me out of a letter 
to himself from Lady Jane Houston, who lives very 
near Huskisson. ... * Houston saw Huskisson yester- 
^^.y, who talked to him of his return to office as of a 
thing quite certain, and of Edward Stanley doing so 
too. Indeed he spoke of the latter as quite the Hope 
of the Nation!' As the Hope of the Nation was 
present when this was read, it would not have been 
decent to laugh ; but the little Earl gave me a look 
that was quite enough." 

" Croxteth, 7th. 

". . . I left little Derby devouring Bourrienne with 
the greatest delight, and he is particularly pleased 
with the exposure of the ignorance of 'that damned 
fellow Sir Walter Scott' The Stanley and Hornby 
party were rather shocked at the great bard and 
novelist being called such names, but the peer said 
he was a * damned impertinent fellow ' for presuming 
to write the life of Bonaparte." 

" 14th. 
". . . To-day we have had a lark of a very high 
order. Lady Wilton sent over yesterday from Knows- 
ley to say that the Loco Motive machine was to be 



546 . THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXI. 

upon the railway at such a place at 12 o'clock for the 
Knovvsley party to ride in if they liked, and inviting 
this house to be of the party. So of course we were 
at our post in 3 carriages and some horsemen at the 
hour appointed. I had the satisfaction, for I can't call 
it pleasure, of taking a trip of five miles in it, which we 
did in just a quarter of an hour — that is, 20 miles an 
hour. As accuracy upon this subject was my great 
object, I held my watch in my hand at starting, and 
all the time; and as it has a second hand, I knew I 
could not be deceived; and it so turned out there was 
not the difference of a second between the coachee or 
conductor and myself But observe, during these five 
miles, the machine was occasionally made to put itself 
out or go it; and then we went at the rate of 23 miles 
an hour, and just with the same ease as to motion or 
absence of friction as the other reduced pace. But 
the quickest motion is to me frightful: it is really 
flying, and it is impossible to divest yourself of the 
notion of instant death to all upon the least accident 
happening. It gave me a headache which has not 
left me yet. Sefton is convinced that some damnable 
thing must come of it ; but he and I seem more struck 
with such apprehension than others. . . . The smoke 
is very inconsiderable indeed, but sparks of fire are 
abroad in some quantity : one burnt Miss de Ros's, 
cheek, another a hole in Lady Maria's silk pelisse, 
and a third a hole in some one else's gown. Alto- 
gether I am extremely glad indeed to have seen this 
miracle, and to have travelled in it. Had I thought 
worse of it than I do, I should have had the curiosity 
to try it ; but, having done so, I am quite satisfied 
with my first achievement being my last^ 

" Croxteth, Nov. i8th. 

"... I am sure you would not wish me to miss 
Lady Foley. It is very nearly the direct road to 
London. Then to see a noble novel-writer, who has 
never been known in the midst of all their ruin to 
degrade herself by putting on either a pair of gloves 
or a ribbon a second time, and who has always 4 ponies 
ready saddled and bridled for any enterprise or 
excursion that may come into her head ! To say 



1S29.] A SPENDTHRIFT PEER. 547 

nothing of Foley, who, without a halfp'orth of income 
keeps the best house and has planted more oak trees 
than any man in England, and by the influence of his 
name and popularity returns two members for Droit- 
wich and one for the count}^ Then he is to get his 
next neighbour Lord Dudley to meet me, so we shall 
have Jean qui plenre ct Jean qui rit — Ward [Lord 
Dudley] being in a state of lingering existence under 
the frightful pressure of ;^i 20,000 a 3^ear." 



( 548 ) 



CHAPTER XXII. 

1830-1831. 

Mr. Creevey's correspondence during 1830 contains 
less of permanent interest than usual. It was an 
eventful year, for it witnessed the downfall of the 
Tory administration, the death of George IV,, and 
the opening of the far-reaching drama of Reform. 
Brougham had busied himself for some time in pro- 
moting the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- 
ledge, and acted as joint editor of its publications. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" Hill St. [1830]. 

"... I have sent for yourself the Library of Useful 
Knowledge, as far as published : with the Farmers' 
Series and Maps. The Entertaining Knowledge Library 
is for the younkers (tho' good and wholesome for all 
ages). ... I believe we begin with 15,000 and print 
to above 20,000. Now pray, if any subject falling in 
with our plans occurs to you, suggest it. You will do 
us a real service. We profess to be able to prepare 
and put in circulation to a vast extent any work of 
useful tendency and sound principles. Of course we 
avoid direct part in Church and State, but we openly 
profess to preach peace, liberty and absolute toleration, 
and I take care, as the works pass through my hands, 
to keep out all that is against these principles, and to 
put in authoritatively what is wanting upon them. . . ." 



1830-31.] BROUGHAM'S LITERARY SCHEMES. 549 

"Brougham, 1830. 

", . . Our Lib, U. K. will get less abstruse now that 
the Mathematical subjects are all gone thro', except 
Astronomy. But some of the treatises are extremely 
plain, and indeed entertaining, notwithstanding their 
titles have hard names — as for instance 'Animal 
Physiology ' — which really teaches anatomy to any- 
one who wishes to understand it, and never knew a 
word of it before. So the life of Galileo is very 
interesting, and that of Caxton. But one fault that 
series has which is quite incurable, as long as the tax 
on paper continues. I mean the small print The 
undertaking was, to give for sixpence as much as is 
usually to be found in an octavo vol. of above 100 
pages. If the tax on paper were repealed, I have no 
doubt we could give 4.8 pages instead of 32 for that 
price, and the print would be as easy to read as any 
needs to be. 

" When I wrote last, I had been speaking for more 
than five hours on the intellectual state of a worthy tea- 
dealer, so I may have omitted a request I intended to 
make to you and the ladies — viz., to suggest subjects for 
books, if any occur, especially for the Entertaining 
Series. The other must take a regular course, but 
this is naturally without rule. Also, any book want- 
ing for the common people in the country (which is 
another part of our plans). 

" I shall take care about Bourrienne * next week 
when I return. I am anxious for its appearance my- 
self, having read the other vols, with detestation — 
scorn of the villain ; but 1 must say as you do — with- 
out much disbelief, which I was sorry for. . . ." 

Less meritorious in Creevey's eyes were 
Brougham's proceedings in Parliament ; and he is 
vociferous in complaint about his "perfidy," &c. But 
Brougham was not the only one of his old " com- 
rogues," as he called them, who were behaving 
" basely." Lord Cleveland, formerly Lord Darlington, 

* Life of Napoleori. 



550 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

declined to provide a seat for Creevey in Parliament, 
notwithstanding that he had received, or thought he 
had received, Lady Cleveland's pledge for the first 
vacancy. 

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey. 

" 1830. 
" Well — what do you say of the first day ? Are 
you of those lunaticks who are angry that we did not 

fo ding-dong at the Beau and turn his Govt, out ? 
'hat is — displace him without an idea who would get 
in ; or, in other words, put things in a state from 
which nobody but the Tories and King could have 
profited. I am clear that the said Beau cannot go on 
as he is. They can't get people to vote, and there is 
a tendency of other people to join in voting against 
them. . . . Have you heard of G. Spencer* giving up 
his livings and turning R. Cath. ? He wanted to 
convert an able priest, and it ended t'other way. Ld. 
Lansdowne brings in young Macaula^'', which may be 
all very well as far as he is concerned, but it gives all 
of us who are Denman's friends serious annoyance 
and regret. I suppose it is only as a locum tenens 
till Kerry t comes of age ; but still, D. could have held 
it as well as another." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"London, Feby. i6th, 1830 

". . . In the jaw between Mrs. Taylor and me this 
morning she observed what a low, dirty fellow 
Lord Cleveland was not to offer me the seat after all 
that had passed ; ' Not that you would have accepted 
it,' said she, ' I feel sure of that ; but as a gentleman 
he was bound to offer it to you.' The Marchioness, 
it seems, has been here, and expressed the united rage 

* The Hon. and Very Rev. George Spencer, 4th son of the 2nd 
Earl Spencer : became Superior of the Order of Passionists, and died 
in 1864. 

t Lord Lansdowne's eldest son. 



1S30-31.J LORD DOURO'S ENGAGEMENT. 551 

of the Naffy * and herself at Brougham's conduct. . . , 
Mrs, Taylor says that, being determined to bring my 
name in, she observed I was coming to town to see 
her, and she was sure I should do her more good than 
all the doctors ; but the Pop was mum, and would not 
touch it; and, as Mrs. Taylor justly observes, they 
are two arrogant rogues, and not worth thinking 
about." 

" i9tli. 

". . . In Arlington Street I found two young 
Foley lads — the eldest the poor victim just come of 
age, and a nicer and more produceable young man I 
never saw. Lady Sefton and I deplored his hard fate 
extremely. It is supposed the deed is done — that is, 
cutting off the entail of the last remnant of the Foley 
property, so that his father and mother may see it all 
fairly out. Lady Sefton told me that Lady Foley t 
had ten new gowns for the party at Witley at Xmas, 
and that the only one that Lady Sefton saw must 
have cost 12 guineas. She has only 5 maids, with 
different occupations, for herself ... I never saw 
Lord Douro % before. His teeth are the only feature 
in which he resembles his father, and altogether he is 
very homely in his air. Do you know he is engaged 
to be married to a daughter of Hume, the Duke's 
doctor. It seems she has stayed a good deal with the 
Duchess, which has led to the youth proposing to her. 
When it was told to the Duke, all he said was — ' Ah ! 
rather young, Douro, are you not — to be married? 
Suppose you stay till the year is out, and if then you 
are in the same mind, it's all very well.' " 

" March nth. 

''. . . I was at Lord Holland's yesterday. . . . They 
both looked very ill. They are evidently most sorely 
pinched— he in his land, and she still more in her 
sugar and rum. So when I gave it as my opinion 
that, if things went on as they did, paper must ooze 

* The Marquess of Cleveland, formerly Earl of Darlington. 

t Lady Cecilia Fitzgerald, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Leinstcr. 

X Elder son of the Duke of Wellington. 

2 P 



552 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

out again by connivance or otherwise, she said she 
wished to God the time was come, or anything else to 
save them. He said he never would consent to the 
return of paper, but he thought the standard might be 
altered : i.e., a sovereign to be made by law worth one 
or two or three and twenty shillings." 

"22nd. 

"... A capital party at old Salisbury's * last night 
— the best I ever saw there. I had a good deal of 
laugh and jaw with the Beau, who was in tip-top 
spirits and looked better in the face than I ever saw 
him. . . . Arthur Hill said to him : — ' Creevey is going 
to bring his pretty nieces here next Thursday.' — ' Oh,' 
said the Beau, ' the Miss Brandlings : I saw them at 
Doncaster. I think they are the prettiest girls I ever 
saw.' " 

" Bansted, May 26th. 

". . , Sefton went down to the House to hear the 
two Royal Messages which it was known were 
coming — one to enable some one to sign poor 
Prinney's name for him,t and the other to shew up 
Leopold for having jibbed at last as to taking Greece 
upon himself To be sure, this jib of his has not been 
brought about by the King's illness ! I suppose 
Mrs. Kent thinks her daughter's reign is coming on 
apace, and that her brother may be of use to her as 
versus Cumberland. . . , We were all on the course 
at Epsom yesterday and saw poor Prinney's horse 
'The Colonel' win the Craven Stakes, If 'Captain 
Arthur ' should win [the Derby] next Thursday, all 
Lord Sefton would pocket in bets and stakes would 
be ;^i2,5oo — that's alllj Gully is quite sure his 
horse Red Rover will win ; § Chifney equally sure 
that Priam will,Il notwithstanding that Lord Ranelagh 
says he trusts in God that heathen god Priam can never 
win." 

* The Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury. 

t George IV. was lying in his last illness. 

% Captain Arthur started at 15 to i, and was not placed. 

§ It ran second, starting at 5 to i. 

II The favourite, Priam, won. 



1830-31.] DEATH OF GEORGE IV. 553 

" London, 31st. 

". , . To call on Lady Grey, whom I found alone. 
She is all against Lord Grey becoming a politician 
again, and says she sees people getting round him 
whom she hates, and never can forgive for their past 
conduct to him, and whose only object now is to 
use him for their own interests. She mentioned 
Brougham in particular. . . ." 

"Stoke, June nth. 

". . . Sefton saw yesterday in Windsor O'Reilly the 
King's apothecary. It had been his turn to sit up with 
him the preceding night, and he said his sufferings 
were extreme — that he might die any moment from 
his complaint, but that even from exhaustion, strong 
as he is, he must die in five or six days. He said to 
O'Reilly more than once : — ' I am going gradually,' 
He is cheerful at times, and very fond of talking about 
horses. O'Reilly says that, in the course of his life, 
he never saw such strength, and that with common 
prudence he might have lived to a hundred." 

" Brooks's, June 26th. 

". . . So poor Prinney is really dead — on a 
Saturday too, as was foretold. ... I have just met 
our great Privy Councillors coming from the Palace 
(Warrender and Bob Adair included). I learnt from 
the former that the only observation he heard from 
the Sovereign was upon his going to write his name 
on parchment, when he said: — 'You have damned 
bad pens here ! ' * Here is Tankerville, who was at the 
Palace likewise. He says the difference in manner 
between the late and present sovereign upon the 
occasion of swearing in the Privy Council was very 
striking. Poor Prinney put on a dramatic, royal, 
distant dignity to all ; Billy, who in addition to living 
out of the world, has become rather blind, was doing 
his best in a very natural way to make out the face of 
every Privy Councillor as each kneeled down to kiss 
his hand. In Tankerville's own case, Billy put one 

* Greville (ii. 3) and Croker (ii. 66) relate the same incident. 



554 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

hand above his eyes and at last said in a most familiar 
tone : — ' Oh, Lord Tankerville, is it you ? I am very 
glad to see you. How d'ye do ? ' It seemed quite a 
restraint to him not to shake hands with people. He 
said to Mr, Chancellor of the Exchequer — the cock- 
eyed Goulbourne — * D'ye know I'm grown so near- 
sighted that I can't make out who you are. You 
must tell me your name, if you please.' He read his 
declaration to the Council', which is said to be very 
favorable to the present Ministry; and it would be 
odd if it was not, as it was drawn up by the Beau. 
After reading this production of the Government, he 
treated the Council with a little impromptu of his 
own, and great was the fear of Wellington, as they 
say visibly expressed on his face, least Billy should 
take too excursive a view of things ; instead of which 
it was merely a little natural and pretty funeral 
oration over Prinney, who, he said, had always been 
the best and most affectionate of brothers." 



" Stoke, August 20th. 

"... I said to Lady Sefton just now — ' Where and 
when was it. Lady Sefton, that you knew the King 
[William] so well ? ' — ' Why, Mr. Creevey,' says she, 
' I'm sure you will not accuse me of vanity when I tell 
you that, upon my first coming out,* he was pleased to 
be very much in love with me, or to say he was so ; 
and my father became so frightened about it that he 
would not let me go where he was likely to be ; for 
it was at the time the Prince of Wales was living with 
Mrs. Fitzherbert. He contrived, however, to send 
me a nosegay [illegible] from Kew, and to get me 
invited to all the gayest and finest balls and parties 
then going ; and as I knew no one to begin with, you 
may suppose how charming it was. What his object 
was, I am sure I don't know : my only one was to go 
wherever I was invited, and to enjoy my liberty and 
fun. However, he went soon after to sea, I believe ; 
and not long after I was married, and I have scarcely 
seen him since. . . .'" 

* As the Hon. Maria Craven, daughter of the 6th Lord Craven. 



iS3o-3t.] DEATH OF HUSKISSON. 555 

"Bangor, Sept. 19th. 

". . . Jack Calcraft has been at the opening of the 
Liverpool railroad, and was an eye-witness of Huskis- 
son's horrible death.* About nine or ten of the pas- 
sengers in the Duke's car had got out to look about 
them, whilst the car stopt. Calcraft was one, Huskis- 
son another, Esterhazy, Billy Holmes, Birch and 
others. When the other locomotive was seen coming 
up to pass them, there was a general shout from those 
within the Duke's car to those without it, to get in. 
Both Holmes and Birch were unable to get up in 
time, but they stuck fast to its sides, and the other 
engine did not touch them. Esterhazy, being light, 
was pulled in by force. Huskisson was feeble in his 
legs, and appears to have lost his head, as he did his 
life. Calcraft tells me that Huskisson's long con- 
finement in St. George's Chapel at the King's funeral 
brought on a complaint that Taylor is so afraid of, 
and that made some severe surgical operation neces- 
sary, the effect of which had been, according to what 
he told Calcraft, to paralyse, as it were, one leg and 
thigh. This, no doubt, must have increased, if it did 
not create, his danger and [caused him to] lose his 
life. He had written to say his health would not let 
him come, and his arrival was unexpected. Calcraft 
saw the meeting between him and the Duke [of Wel- 
lington], and saw them shake hands a very short 
time before Huskisson's death. The latter event must 
be followed by important political consequences. The 
Canning faction has lost its corner stone, and the 
Duke's Government one of its most formidable 
opponents. Huskisson, too, once out of the way, 
Palmerston, Melbourne, the Grants, &c,, may make it 
up with the Beau." 

" The dear Plough, CheUenham, Oct. 5th. 

". . . Well, here we are again, driven from that 
greatest of all humbugs, Leamington. The fame of 
the latter place is one of the many proofs to what an 

* Mr. Huskisson, who probably had not met the Duke of Welling- 
ton since the Cabinet crisis caused by the resignation of the former, 
had left his car on purpose to shake hands with the Duke. 



55^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIL 

extent the folly of English people will club and sup- 
port a thing ; till by common consent it disappears, 
which some day or other this Leamington will do. 
The town is a half-built skeleton of a concern, and in 
point of population and convenience of all kinds, a 
perfect desert compared with this." 



Earl of Sefton to Mr. Crecvey. 

" Oct., 1830, 

"... I suppose you have heard of Lord Chester- 
field's marriage to Anne Forester.* Charles Greville 
went express to London from Heaton (Wilton's) to 
break it to Mrs. Fox Lane. George Anson marries 
Isabella:! money no object. . . . I don't believe there 
will be a king in Europe in 2 years' time, or that 
property of any kind is worth 5 years' purchase. . . ." 

" Thursday, Nov. i8th, 1830. 

". . . Everything except the Brougham business 
going on smoothly. That is, I assure you, very diffi- 
cult, but must end in the Rolls. He is really in a 
state of insanity, complains to everybody that he is 
neglected and threatens to put an extinguisher on the 
new Govt, in a month. In the meantime he keeps 
swearing he will not take anything — that he ought to 
be offered the Seals, tho' he wd. kick them out of the 
window rather than desert his Yorkshire friends by 
taking a peerage. All this, however, will subside in 
the Rolls, where, being lodged for life and quite 
beyond controul, I don't envy the Govt, with such a 
chap ready to pounce upon them unexpectedly." 

" Frida)^, I9tli. 

" By God ! Brougham is Chancellor. It is sup-^ 
posed he will be safer there, because, if he don't 
behave well, he will be turned out at a moment's 
notice, and he is then powerless. What a flattering 
reason for appointing him ! . . . Grey speaks most 

* Eldest daughter of the 1st Lord Forester: died 18S5. 
t Third daughter of the same. 



1S30-31.] LORD GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 557 

kindly of you, and I am sure wd. be delighted to 
do something for you ; but why the devil do you put 
yourself out of the way of everything ? " 

Upon Lord Grey taking office in November, 1830, 
he appointed his old friend Creevey to the office of 
Treasurer of the Ordnance, at a salary of ;^i200 
a year. Ever since his wife's death, Mr. Creevey had 
existed upon a very slender income — "p^20o a year 
or less," as Charles Greville says * — but he was the 
constant and welcome guest of the Seftons, the 
Taylors, and a host of other friends, and had few 
expenses to meet except for his clothes and travelling. 
Still, this permanent office must have come as a trans- 
lation from penury to affluence. The Whigs, even 
purified as they had been by long years of opposition 
and the persistent efforts of Brougham, Creevey, and 
other reformers to put an end to jobbery, showed 
themselves far from diffident in the exercise of patron- 
age. At the present day, when sixty has been fixed 
as the age for retiring from the Civil Service, it may 
seem an abuse of patronage to have invited a gentle- 
man of sixty-two to enter it; but, according to the 
practice of pre-Reform times, nothing could be thought 
more natural. The Ordnance Office was established 
in the Tower of London, and Creevey's letters express 
quite a boyish delight in his new quarters, and a naive 
wonder at the minuteness of the Ordnance survey 
maps then being engraved for the first time. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" The Tower, Jan. 31st, 1831. 

". . . I dined in Downing Street with Lady Grey 
. . . After dinner the private secretary to the Prime 

* Greville Memoirs, i. 235. 



558 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

Minister and myself being alone, I ascertained that, 
altho' Lord Grey was gone to Brighton ostensibly to 
prick for Sheriffs for the year, his great object was to 
lay his plan of reform before the King, previous (if he 
approves) to its being proposed to the House of 
Commons. A ticklish operation, this ! to propose to 
a Sovereign a plan for reducing his own power and 
patronage. However, there is the plan all cut and 
dry, and the Cabinet unanimous upon the subject. . . . 
Billy has been in perfect ecstacies with his Govern- 
ment ever since they arrested O'Connell. Wood says 
if the King gives his Government his real support 
upon this Reform question, without the slightest ap- 
pearance of a jib, Grey is determined to fi^ht it out 
to a dissolution of Parliament, if his plan is beat in 
the Commons. My eye, what a crisis ! " 

" Feb. 4th. 
". . . Grey says the King's conduct was perfect — 
not in giving an unqualified assent, as a constitutional 
King might to any Minister who happened to be so 
at the time ; but he bestowed much time and thought 
in going over every part of the plan, examined its 
bearings, asked most sensible questions, and, being 
quite satisfied with everything Grey urged in its 
support, pledged himself irrevocably to do the same. 
. . . Grey said, too, the Queen was evidently better ^\\h 
him. It seems that her manners to him at first were 
distant and reserved, so that he could not avoid con- 
cluding that the change of Government was a subject 
of regret to her. This was an appalling reflection 
for a reforming minister, but he satisfied himself that 
she has no influence over the King, and that, in fact, 
he never even mentions politicks to her, much less 
consults her — that her influence over him as to his 
manners has been very great and highly beneficfal, 
but there it stops. . . . Well, you see the Govern- 
ment lost no time last night in giving their notices — 
Vaux * to reform the Court of Chancery — Melbourne 
to make new laws in favor of Ireland, and Althorp 

* Brougham, as Lord Chancellor, had entered the House of Lords 
as Lord Brougham and Vaux, which gave his enemies the opportunity 
of declaring that he ought to have been " Vaux et proeterea nihil." 




EARL GREY. 



[To face J>. 558. 



1S30-31.] A PARTY IN DOWNING STREET. 559 

his plan of reform, to be carried by Lord J. Russell. 
Anything like such fair and open downright dealing 
was never known in Parliament before. . . . 

" Sefton had a good conversation with Lady Gre}', 
and my lord too, last night. It seems the Dino * came 
there from Leach's, and Sefton heard her entreating 
Lady Grey to use her influence with Lady Durham 
to let her boy, and I believe a little girl, to come to a 
child's ball at the Dino's on Monday next. So when 
Lord Grey was handing the Dino to her carriage, 
Sefton and Lady Grey being left alone, the latter 
said to him : — ' Was there ever anything like the ab- 
surdities of Lambton? He not only won't be intro- 
duced to Mons. Talleyrand and Madame de Dino, 
but he chooses to be as rude as possible to them 
whenever he meets them.' — ' Good God ! ' said Sefton, 
* what can that possibly mean ? ' — ' Why because he 
chooses to be affronted that they did not ask to be 
introduced to him before he was in office,] and now that 
he is so, he insists upon Louisa t having nothing to 
do with Madame de Dino. Just as Lad\^ Grey was 
finishing, Grey returned, and she said — ' 1 was telling 
Lord Sefton of Lambton's nonsense;' and then they 
both joined in abusing him, as well they might. Did 
you ever, in the whole history of mankind, hear of 
such a presumptuous puppy ? However, I hope he 
will go on offending Lord and Lady Grey, and be 
himself out of [illegible]. I declare I know of no 
event that would be more favorable to Lord Grey's 
government. I am delighted at that other puppy 
Agar. Ellis § being obliged from ill health to give up 
the Woods and Forests, and still more delighted that 
the excellent Duncannon has got it. . . . You know 
that the Queen would not let old Mother St. Albans || 
come to her ball at the Pavilion, tho' there were 830 
people there ! " 

* Madame de Dino, Talleyrand's niece, 
t Lord Durham had been appointed Lord Privy Seal. 
X Lady Durham. 

§ Son of the 2nd and father of the 3rd Viscount Clifden. 
II Second wife of the 9th Duke of St. Albans, and relict of Thomas 
Coutts the banker ; originally well known as the actress Mrs. Mellon. 



56o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

" Feb. 8th. 
". . . Talleyrand professes to Grey to be quite en- 
chanted with the existing cordiality between France 
and England, and lays it down that such an union can 
set the whole world at defiance. . . . Those damned 
pension lists are a cursed millstone about the neck of 
the Government. Grey was almost crying when he 
talked to Sefton of the difficulty and misery of de- 
priving so many people of their subsistence. . . ." 

" Tower, 9th. 

". . . My dear, these damned pensioners are the 
devil's own to carry thro' with us, and there can be 
no crowing till the Civil List Bill is fairly past. 
There is such an universal demand to have them 
flung out of window that I don't see how they are to 
escape. . . . Our Vaux is not so tender-hearted in his 
department. By his reform he is to spread desolation 
by wholesale amidst the profession. I know that the 
Beau said yesterda}^: — ' I am very glad that Brougham 
is Chancellor. He is the only man with courage and 
talent to reform that damned Court.'" 

"Brooks's, Feby. 12th. 

". . . There is old Basto [? Pascoe] Grenfell from 
the City, who says there is but one universal feeling 
of execration at poor Clunch's * project of taxing the 
transfer of stock. In short, poor dear Whigs, it is 
sad work, gentlemen, sad work ! . . ." 

" iSth. 
". . . Do you take any interest about Mrs. Heber, 
the widow of the Bishop of Calcutta? Because if 
you do, I can tell you something. On her return 
overland from India, she picked up a Greek at Milan 
and married him. Her attachment was, of course, to 
the sacred cause of his country. They immediately 
started for that classic land ; but unfortunately, upon 
reaching Athens, it turned out that he was provided, 
not only with another wife, but with a large family. 

* Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose first budget 
was very badly received. 



i83o-3t.] QUEEN ADELAIDE'S DRAWING-ROOM. 561 

She arrived here a few days ago, without a husband 
and nearly without a sow." 

"Tower, 19th. 
". . . Lady Sefton, her three eldest daughters, 
Frances * and myself went after dinner last night to 
Lady Grey's weekly. . . . Our Vaux was there with 
his daughter. I had some very good laughing with 
him, and he was in his accustomed overflowing glee. 
We had some very pretty amusement with Viscount 
Melbourne, who is very agreeable. . . . Grey was very 
loud to me in praise of Edward Stanley,! who, by 
common consent, has made two excellent speeches. 
He is quite ready for battle with O'Connell, and the 
greatest confidence is entertained that Edward will be 
too much for him." 

"Feb. 24th, 1 83 1. 
". . . There has been a charming scene at the 
Drawing-room to-day. Lady Jersey went up to Lord 
Durham in the greatest fury and, in the presence of 
all the world, said : — ' Lord Durham, I beg you will 
call upon me to-morrow and bring a witness with you. 
I have been so shamefully calumniated, and I will have 
justice done me.' — Duncannon, who was present and 
heard this, was in some horror of Lord Durham's reply. 
He turned as pale as death, and, after a little hesita- 
tion, said very calmly : — 'Lady Jersey, in all probability 
I shall never be in your house again."* 

" 27th. 
". . . As I was the first who arrived in Arlington 
Street yesterday to dinner, Sefton took me out into 
the corner room and told me of a scene between him 
and Brougham. . . . The Arch-fiend asked him if he 
had seen the Times that morning. — ' No,' said Sefton, 
' not to-day, but I have read it with great uneasiness 
the three or four preceding days, and I want of all 
things to talk to you about it.' — He then opened his 
case, stated the deliberate attack making upon Grey 
by that paper, coupled with its constant panegyrick 

* Mrs. Taylor. 

t Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby. He was Secretary for Ireland 
in Lord Grey's administration. 



563 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

upon Brougham, made it necessary for Brougham to 
summon the editor, and to insist upon these attacks 
upon Grey being discontinued. That otherwise, as 
Brougham's influence over that paper was notorious 
to all, and as his brother William was known to write 
for it, it could not fail to beget suspicion that he — 
Brougham — had no objection to these attacks, and 
that Ld. Grey felt them most sensibly. That if he — 
Brougham — thought he would make a better Prime 
Minister than Grey, and was preparing the way for 
that event, that was matter for his own consideration ; 
but if he really means the Government to go on as at 
present formed, Sefton conjured him to lose no time in 
imposing his most positive injunction on the Times 
newspaper to alter its course. 

" Sefton says nothing could equal the artififcial rage 
into which Vaux flung himself He swore like a trooper 
that he had no influence over the Times — that he had 
never once seen Barnes the editor since he had been 
in office, and that William had never written a line for 
it. He then fell upon Lambton — said all this came 
from him — that he had behaved in the most imperti- 
nent manner to both his brothers upon this subject — 
that if he ,went on as he did he must break up the 
Government, and that he, for one, would never submit 
to his influence. This storm being over, Sefton col- 
lected from him distinctly that he had seen Barnes 
perhaps once or twice, and that brother William might 
perhaps — tho' quite unknown to him — have written an 
article or two in this paper. In short, as our Earl 
observed, never culprit was more clearly proved 
guilty than he was out of his own mouth, and it ended 
by his affecting to doubt which would be the best 
channel for getting at Barnes — brother William or 
Vizard — but at all events he pledged himself to Sefton 
that it should be done. ..." 

" 28th. 

"... Well, the Times newspaper has evidently had 
its visitation in the course of yesterday. It has two 
leading and very powerful articles in favor of the 
Government. . . . If you come to that, your Morning 
Herald of to-day is not amiss in support of our 
Government. In short, we are recovering by gentle 



1830-31.] THE FIRST DRAFT OF REFORM. 563 

degrees from Althorp. He had very nearly killed us, 
poor fellow, honest as he is, but it must be admitted 
that he has been damned conceited." 

" Tower, March 3rd. 

" Well, what think you of our Reform plan ? My 
raptures with it encrease every hour, and my astonish- 
ment at its boldness. It was all very well for an 
historian like Thomas Creevey to lay down the law, 
as he did in his pamphlet, that all these rotten nomi- 
nation boroughs were modern usurpations, and that 
the comnmnities of all substantial boroughs were by 
law the real electors ; but here is a little fellow not 
weighing above 8 stone — Lord John Russell by name 
— who, without talking of law or anything else, creates 
in fact a perfectly new House of Commons, quite in 
conformity to the original formation of that body. , . . 
What a coup it is! It is its boldness that makes its 
success so certain. ... A week or ten days must elapse 
before the Bill is printed and ready for a 2nd reading ; 
by that time the country will be in a flame from one 
end to the other in favor of the measure. ... I saw 
the stately Buckingham going down to the Lords just 
now. I wonder how he likes the boroughs of Buck- 
ingham and St. Mawe's being bowled out. He would 
never have been a duke without them, and can there 
be a better reason for their destruction ? " 

" Tower, 5th. 

". . . Well, our Reform rises in publick affection 
every instant. . . . To think of dear Aldborough and 
Orford, both belonging to Lord Hertford, and pur- 
chased at a great price, being clearly bowled out, 
without a word of with your leave or by your leave. 
Aye, and not only that such proprietors are destitute 
of all means of self-defence, but they are treated as 
criminals by the whole country for making any fight 
on their own behalf ... At Crocky's, even the 
boroughmongers admitted that their representative, 
Croker, had made a damned rum figure. Poor Billy 
Holmes ! Both he and Croker will have but a slender 
chance of being M.P.'s again under our restored con- 
stitution. In short, Bess)^, there is no end to the fun 



564 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

and confusion that this measure scatters far and near 
into by far the most corrupt, insolent, shameless, 
profligate gang that this country contains. They are 
all dead men by this Bill, never to rise again, and their 
occupation is dead also. . . . To be sure the poor devils 
who stick to the wreck will have mobbing enough from 
out of doors before the business is over. ... It is not 
3 weeks since Sir John Shelley asked Lord Grey to 
make him a peer, who answered him by saying: — 
* Indeed, my dear Shelley, to deal fairly with you, I 
don't think you have any claims ; and if you had, why 
did you not get your friend the Duke of Wellington 
to make you one?' — What you call a double-fisted go 
for the baronet, was it not ? " 

"Tower, March 12th. 

"... I fear Vaux must go crazy. He is like 
Wolsey. I'll give you a case in point. We had all 
heard how his coach had been stopt at the Horse 
Guards on the day of the Queen's drawing-room, and 
that he had got into the greatest fury and called out 
to let any man at his peril stop the Lord Chancellor 
of England from ^oing to the King ; but your milifaire 
has a knack of relerring to an order, and a written one 
was produced, forbidding any carriage to pass thro' 
that gate on days of the Queen's drawing-rooms, 
except the Royal Family, Archbishop of Canterbury 
and the Speaker of the House of Commons. The 
officer upon guard most civilly explained the order 
and expressed his regret at being obliged to enforce 
it ; but our Guy, little daunted or cajoled by all this, 
put his wig out of the other window and ordered his 
coachman to go on at all hazards ; and so he did, carry- 
ing Horse Guards blue and red all clear before him. . . , 
My Lord Chancellor's defence to Sefton was that, not 
only were the Speaker and the Archbishop down as 
privilege men, but Lord Shaftesbury who is chairman 
of the House of Lords — a kind of deputy to Brougham. 
' So,' as the latter justly observed, ' when I saw my own 
man — my actual boot-jack — had the privilege, and not 
me, it was more than flesh and blood could bear.* . . . 
Sefton, who sees the actual insides of both Vaux and 
Grey, says there is a considerable dislike in each to 



1S30-31.] STIRRING TIMES. 565 

the other. What an invaluable thing for both to have 
so sincere, so clever and so unintriguing a friend as 
Sefton, and how entertaining for us to see all thro' 
him ! " 



"Tower, March 14th. 

"... Sefton was still too unwell to dine at Ld. 
Grey's, which was a terrible blow to us all ; so Lady 
Sef-ton and Lady Maria called at Mrs. Durham's * for 
me, and took me there. It was not a large party — the 
two female Seftons, Lord Durham, Morpeth,t Dun- 
cannon, Luttrell and myself, with the four Greys and 
Charles Greville. Grey was all alive o ! quite over- 
flowing, never ceasing in his little civilities to myself 
wanting me to eat this or drink that : — ' Do, Creevey 
I assure you it's damned good ; I know you will like 
it.' Can't you see him? ... It was not amiss for a 
Prime Minister to call out at dinner : — ' Do you think, 
Creevey, we shall carry our Reform Bill in the 
Lords?' . . . Lady Lyndhurst came at night, and 
very handsome she looked, tho' very near a woman 
of colour. I did not know before that her first 
husband, Captn. Thomas, was killed in the battle of 
Waterloo. . . ." 

". . . Lord Dacre said to me one day lately : — ' Do 
you know, Creevey, how Brougham came to take the 
title of Vaux ? because, you know, it is nry title ; but 
as I don't care about such things, I have never done 
or said anything about it. The title, however, is 
mine.' , . . As Vaux has not enough upon his hands, 
he has opened his batteries in the Times of to-day 
against Lady Jersey in a longish and bitter article. 
She is mad in her rage against our Reform, and moves 
heaven and earth against it wherever she goes 
according to her powers ; but those powers are by 
no means what they used to be. In short, she is like 
the rotten boroughs — going to the devil as fast as she 
can." 

* Creevey's lodging in Bury Street. 
t Afterwards 7th Earl of Carlisle. 



566 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

" 14th. 

". . . The King never ceases to impress upon 
Duncannon that all he and the Queen wish for is to 
be comfortable. He says that both he and the Queen 
find it inconvenient to be obliged to move all their 
books, papers, &c., out of their own sitting-rooms 
upon every Levee day and Drawing-room, because 
their rooms are wanted on such occasions ; that as 
for removing to Buckingham House, he will do so if 
the Government wish it, tho' he thinks it a most ill- 
contrived house ; and if he goes there, he hopes it 
may be plain, and no gilding, for he dislikes it 
extremely. But what he would prefer to everything, 
would be living in Marlborough House, which is 
Crown land and the lease nearly out. . . . Billy says 
if he might have a passage made to unite this house 
with St. James's, he thinks he and the Queen could 
live there very comfortably indeed. Now was there 
ever so innocent a Sovereign since the world was 
made?" 

"Brooks's, 2 1 St. 

"I saw Lord Bruffam chased by Lord Eldon in 
their carriages to the door of the House of Lords. 
There is going to be a pitched battle between them 
to-night upon one of Brougham's Chancery legal 
reform bills. I'll bet upon our Arch-fiend ! . . . The 
enemy is in the most insolent crowing state possible 
to-day, perfectly certain, as they say, to defeat our 
Bill. Wetherell * told me last night he was as sure of 
their victory as of his own existence." 

. " 22nd. 

". . . The King and Queen were to have gone to 
the Opera to-night, but an account has arrived to-day 
of the death of Kennedy who married one of the Miss 
Fitzclarences, so they don't go. Albemarle was to 
have dined there to-day, but the King said to him : — 
' We have no dinner to-day, and don't go to the opera, 
because that is pleasure; but we shall go on with the 
levee to-morrow, because that is duty.'' A very pretty 
distinction, I think, for a King to make." 

* Sir Charles Wetherell [1770-1846], Attorney-General. 



183C-31.] THE SECOND READING CARRIED. 567 

" Brooks's, March 23rd. 

"Majority for our Bill 

ii^ 1 -"m^ 

"Devilish near, was it not? Yesterday I was of 
opinion that to lose the question by one would have 
been the best thing for us ; but I don't think so now. 
. . . Everybody likes winning, and it keeps people's 
spirits up. ... I went into Crocky's after the opera, 
being determined to wait the result, and there were 
quantities of people in the same mind, friends and 
foes, but we were all as amicable and merry as we 
could be. A little before five [a.m.] our minds were 
relieved by the arrival of members without end — 
friends and foes — and I must say (with the exception 
of young Jack Shelley) the same good temper and fun 
were visible on both sides." 

" Tower, 24th. 

". . . You will see by your paper of to-day that 
Horace Seymour and Captn. Meynell are dismissed 
from the King's household, their offence having been 
voting against the King's Reform Bill. They were 
both of them Lord Hertford's members. This is 
something like ! Grey spoke about it to the King at 
the levee 3'^esterda3'-, and the job was done out of 
hand." 

" 26th. 

"... I wish you could have been with me when I 
entered our Premier's drawing-room last night. I 
was rather early, and he was standing alone with his 
back to a fire — the best dressed, the handsomest, and 
apparently the happiest man in all his royal master's 
dominions. . . . Lady Grey was as proud of my lord's 
speech as she ought to be, and she, too, looked as 
handsome and happ}^ as ever she could be. . . . She 
said at least 3 times — ' Come and sit here, Mr. Creevey.' 
You see the cause of this uniform kindness of Lady 
Grey to myself is her recollection that I was all for 
Lord Grey when many of his present worshippers 
were doing all they could against him. . . . Upon one 
of the duets between Lord Grey and me last night, 

2 g 



568 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

who should be announced but Sir James Scarlett. 
He graciously put out a hand for each of us, but my 
lord received him so coldly, that he was off in an 
instant, and Grey said to me : — ' What an extraordinary 
thing his coming here ! the more so, as I don't believe 
he was invited.' . . . Lady Grey said to me : — ' I 
really could not be such a hypocrite as to put out my 
hand to Sir James Scarlett ; ' so he must have had a 
good night of it ! " 

" 28tll. 

", . . Our dinner at Sefton's yesterday was very 
agreeable — the Cowpers, Edward and Mrs. Stanley, 
Duke of Argyll, Melbourne, Palmerston, Foley, Alava, 
Charles Greville and myself Alava and I were there 
ten minutes before anybody else, and he was very 
instructive about France, where he has been living 
for the last 5 3^ears. As he says of himself, he 
naturally hates a Frenchman, but he has the greatest 
opinion of Casimir. . . . When little Derby was going 
to kneel upon being sworn a Privy Councillor, the 
King said : — * I beg you won't kneel, Lord Derby ; you 
have the gout' — * Your Majesty must allow me.' — ' I 
won't hear of it ! ' and he would not let him. Then he 
said : — * How long have you been Lord Lieutenant of 
Lancashire, my lord ? ' and when he told him, the King 
said : — ' I have often heard my father say you was the 
best Lord Lieutenant in England, and so you are 
now!'" 

" 29th. 
"... I think there ought to be a collection made 
from authority of all the sayings of our beloved 
Sovereign. Take for instance one that Albemarle 
told me, and which he himself heard at the Queen's 
drawing-room. I don't know whether you are aware 
that the King gives every lady two kisses, one on 
each cheek ; but so it is. Well, on Thursday a lady 
was taking up her daughter to present her to the 
Queen, to do which they pass the Kmg. It so happens, 
they live somewhere within reach of Bushey,* and 
used to visit there. The girl who was following her 
mother was so frightened that she took no notice of 

* Where William IV. had lived as Duke of Clarence. 



1830-31.] THE BILL IN COMMITTEE. 569 

the King as she passed him ; upon which he laid hold 
of her, and taking her by the hand, said : — ' Oh, oh ! is 
this the way you treat your country friends ? ' and then 
gave her two kisses." 

"i6th April. 
". . . Now let me make a profound observation 
upon a decision the Speaker made known last night 
respecting Schedule A in the Reform Bill, viz. that a 
vote must be taken upon these boroughs one by one, 
and not in the lump. Permit me to say that, for us, 
this is perfectly invaluable ; the list being alphabetical, 
the first two boroughs in the schedule are Aldborough 
in Yorkshire, belonging to the Duke of Newcastle, 
and the other Aldborough in Suffolk belonging to 
Lord Hertford — both the rottenest of the rotten. Well 
then — if the House votes for abolishing either Ald- 
borough, the principle of abolition is admitted ; if they 
vote against it and succeed, then we go to a dissolution 
upon one of the rottenest cases in the schedule. This 
is the object of all others for an appeal to the country 
upon." 

" i8th. 
"Sefton and I had Lord Chancellor Vaux to our- 
selves last night in Arlington Street. ... I can't con- 
ceal from you that, after he was gone, Sefton and I 
both agreed that a more unsatisfactory devil we had 
never beheld. Altho' he was in the most loquacious, 
animated state, we could neither of us make out for 
the life of us what he would be at. The only thing 
we could agree upon was that he was an intriguing, 
perfidious rogue." 

"Tower, 21st. 
". . . This is a memorable day, and this a memorable 
hour of it, for our Sovereign has taken to this time to 
deliberate whether he accedes to Lord Grey's applica- 
tion for a dissolution. ... At all events the Reform 
Bill is to be abandoned in the House of Commons 
to-night upon the grounds that, in such a House of 
Commons, to carry it through is impossible. If the 
King runs true, a dissolution is to be announced at 
the same time ; if he does not, the Ministers have to 
state that they have resigned." 



570 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

Ardent and uncompromising reformer and advocate 
of retrenchment as Creevey had always been, it is 
comical to see how he winced when the Committee, 
appointed by Lord Grey's Government to revise the 
scale of salaries, trenched upon his own emoluments. 
" Have you seen," he asks his step-daughter, " how 
that damned retrenching Committee have docked my 
office of i^2oo a year ? " And again — " If Earl Grey 
does not get me back my ;^200 a year as Treasurer — 
I'll eat him ! " Most of the Treasurer's correspondence 
at this time is taken up with the fluctuating prospects 
of the Reform Bill, and with various possibilities 
which presented themselves of his re-entering Par- 
liament in order to give the measure his support. 
But, as usual, his letters are full of diverse incidents 
and gossip. Describing a royal night at the Opera, 
he observes : — " Billy 4th at the Opera was everything 
one could wish : a more Wapping air I defy a king to 
have — his hair five times as full oipoiidre as mine, and 
his seaman's gold lace cock-and-pinch hat was charm- 
ing. He slept most part of the Opera — never spoke 
to any one, or took the slightest interest in the con- 
cern. ... I was sorry not to see more of Victoria : 
she was in a box with the Duchess of Kent, opposite 
and, of course, rather under us. When she looked 
over the box I saw her, and she looked a ver}^ nice 
little girl indeed." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" April 23rd. 

". . . Nothing could exceed the firmness and con- 
duct altogether of our Sovereign yesterday. I know 
from Lord Grey that, when the latter stated the in- 
convenience that might arise from proroguing by 



1830-31.] CREEVEY RETURNS TO PARLIAMENT. S/F 

commission, but added tliat it was quite out of the 
question to ask his Majesty to prorogue in person, 
the King replied: — ' My lord, I'll go, if I go in a 
hackney coach ! ' " 

On 4th May Thomas Creevey and James Brougham, 
brother of the Chancellor, were returned as members 
for Downton borough in the county of Wilts, by 
favour of the Earl of Radnor — the truculent Folke- 
stone of Peninsular days. The affair was conducted 
in the good old style ; neither of the candidates took 
the trouble to visit their constituents, who were 
exceedingly few and docile, quite content to be repre- 
sented by anybody whom Lord Radnor chose to name 
to them. 

"Brooks's, May nth. 

". . . Having been dressed by Mr. Durham, Mrs. 
Durham* and Sally her niece, it was agreed that 
never coat fitted so well or was so becoming, and 
off we went [to Court]. Would you believe it? in 
about ten minutes I was detected as being in the 
wrong livery. It is the Household only that wear red 
collars , and cuffs ; the official ones are black. This 
was rather a bore, but it made great fun, as Earl Grey 
happened to come into our room whilst we were in 
progress to the Presence Chamber. I caught hold of 
him and told him of my mistake, upon which I thought 
he would have burst, he was so entertained, and he 
swore the King would find me out directly. But pas 
du tout: when I had kissed his hand, he said in the 
most good-natured manner : — ' Oh, Creevey, how d'ye 
do? It is a long time since I had the pleasure of 
seeing you.' Little Sussex was next to him, and 
when I retired from my Sovereign backing, he said out 
loud: — 'How gracefully he does it!' and even Privy 
Sealf laughed out loud. So it was all mighty well, 
and Jemmy McDonald brought me back." 

* Who kept his lodgings in Bury Street, 
t Lord Durham. 



5/2 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 



"i2th. 

". . . It was in contemplation, by some of the 
Cabinet, to postpone the Reform Bill when [the new] 
Parliament met till autumn — a step that would have 
been madness, and perhaps ruin to them. That, how- 
ever, is quite abandoned, and Lambton authorised 
them to state at the Middlesex election that it would 
come on the very first thing." 

" 9th May. 

"... I had a very good day yesterday at my dear 
and old friend Essex's — Lords Sefton, Foley, Cowper, 
Ducie, and Du Cane, EUice and Poodle Byng : then to 
Arlington Street [the Seftons]; then to Dow. Sally's.* 
... I called yesterday on Niffy and the Pop,t but 
both were out." 

" i6th. 

". . . Brougham said to Sefton yesterday : — ' I hear 
a batch of new peers is on the stocks ; but / have 
never been consulted ; which I think is pretty well, 
considering my situation. However, as they can't be 
made without the Great Seal being put to their patents, 
I'll be damned if I use it for such purpose till I am 
properly consulted and give my consent ! ' . . . As I 
learnt from Lord Sefton that Brougham's observations 
about me had been made at the Queen's ball last 
Monday, I was prepared for some change of manner 
in him when we met at dinner at Mrs. Ferguson's on 
Thursday; but it was quite otherwise. . . . We met 
again on Saturday at Hughes's, and tho' he was 
evidently out of sorts, it was not with me, for he con- 
fided to me before dinner that he never saw such a 
set of bores collected together — that the thing was 
damnable — and whenever he made any exertion at 
dinner, it was in addressing me at quite the other end 
of the table. As to bores, I don't know that they were 
particularly so. Lady Augusta Milbank, and Ciss 
Underwood, with such a profusion of gold bijouterie 
in all parts that nothing was wanting but something 

* Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury. 

t Marquess and Marchioness of Cleveland. 



1830-31.] THE PRIME MINISTER. 573 

hanging from her nose. Sir Harry and Lady Grey, 
little Sussex, Vaux, Lords Dundas and Uxbridge,* 
Denman, Col. J. Hughes, Councillor Whateley, Ad- 
miral Codrington (a real bore), Mr. Creevey, and some 
others I think. I sat next to Denman,t and never 
was more surprised than to find him a feeble punster 
and as commonplace a chap in conversation as I ever 
saw in my life. As Suss | took to smoking, and Vaux 
from ennui did the same, I availed myself of my 
remote situation near a door, and whipt off before 
they went to coffee." 

"Tower, May i8th, 1831. 

"... I paid a visit to Lady Grey in her [opera] 
box. . . . She is always shy of giving political 
opinions except when alone ; but upon my observing 
that, from what I heard, Brougham must be in his 
tantrums at present : — ' I believe,' she said, ' he is inad.' 
As she and Lord Grey had been staying at Holland 
House, I asked how it had answered, and she said : — ■ 
'As well as it could, sitting down 15 at dinner each 
day to a table that holds only nine.' — Can't you see 
her saying that? . . . Grey complains of giddiness, 
and no wonder, with all he eats and his little exercise." 



"27th. 

", . . While I was riding in the Park yesterday, I 
received rather a smartish spat on my shoulder from 
an unseen stick. When I turned round and saw my 
assailant in quite an ultra fit of laughing, who do you 
suppose it could be ? No other than our Prime 
Minister. . . . When I said of his royal master that 
every new thing I heard of him raised him higher in 
my opinion, he said : — ' He is a prime fellow, is he 
not ?'...! heard part of the King's letter to Lord 
Grey : — * The King considers it as most important in 
the jjresent crisis of afi'airs to give some decisive proof 
of his unqualified confidence in Lord Grey, and for 
such a purpose he trusts Lord Grey will no longer 

* Afterwards 2nd Marquess of Anglesey. 

t Afterwards Lord Chief Justice, created Lord Denman in 1834. 

% H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex. 



574 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

resist receiving from his hands the Order of the 
Garter, altho' that Order is now full; Lord Grey to 
be an Extra Knight, and the Order to be reduced to 
its proper number upon the first vacancy.' " 

" 30th. 
"... I had an opportunity of seeing our own new 
knight, and very severe we were upon him for wear- 
ing his Garter upon pantaloons or trowsers — he who 
always makes so distinguished a figure in shorts and 
buckles." 

"June 14th. 

". . . Well, Mull * tells me it is all settled about 
his father's peerage — Baron Sefton of Croxteth.t — 
There are only four others — Kinnaird one, which is a 
charming blow by our Sovereign to the Scotch peers 
who would not elect him one of the 16 representative 
peers." 

" iStli. 
". . . Rather sharp work this day 16 years ago at 
Waterloo and Brussels. . . . Lord Grey told Sefton 
that Lambton :|: made him both miserable and actually 
ill by his constant interference and persecution of 
him. . . . Charles Greville told me he was at Lady 
Jersey's when Wellington was there, the subject of 
conversation being the cholera morbus. Lady Jersey 
said to the Duke : — ' You know what Lord Grey has 
done about it? ' — ' No.' — ' He has given orders that all 
merchandise coming from the Baltic shall be instantl}^ 
destroyed.' — 'Oh impossible!' — 'But I know it to be 
quite true.' Just at that time she left the room and 
the Duke availed himself of her absence to observe 
to Greville — 'What damned nonsense Lady Jersey 
talks!' . . ." 

" 30th. 

". . . Yesterday I dined in Portland Place and 
went in the evening to Downing Street, where I 
found Tommy Moore at the pianoforte, playing and 
singing his own melodies ; and very much delighted 
I was with his performance." 

* Viscount Molyneux, afterwards 3rd Earl of Sefton. 
t He was Earl of Sefton only in the peerage of Ireland. 
X Lord Durham. 



1830-31.] INFLUENZA. 575 

" 25th. 

"... I have been giving a curious receipt upon a 
curious subject. The Duke of Wellington and Sir 
Wm. Knighton have this day paid me £3,170 as 
executors of his late Majesty. The money is for tents 
erected upon that part of Windsor Park called the 
Virginia Water. The canvas composing the tents is 
from Ordnance stores, and as his Majesty was pleased 
to imagine that whenever he took the field, his Ord- 
nance Department must supply him with tents, he 
never meant to pay for these articles. Tennyson, 
finding the amount of this job in his books, has 
demanded payment from the executors. , . . What 
think you of the payment of the artificers who put up 
these tents — four large and four small ones — being 
upwards of ;^20oo out of the ;^3,i7o? I think 
Knighton must have been one of these artificers. If 
such a sum can have been spent upon a few tents, 
what think you of the whole expenditure of the 
Virginia Water, Cottage, &c., &c. ? Oh dear, oh 
dear ! . . . Well our Reform Bill made its first 
appearance last night, and under most pacific circum- 
stances. . . . Peel was very temperate." 

"30th. 
'*. . . Our Earl [Sefton] is confined with the in- 
fiuenza {la grippe), and sent all over the town for me 
yesterday. ..." 

" July 6th. 
"... I went to Arlington Street yesterday and 
found Lady Sefton, and was half inclined to put off 
dining there in order to be present at the Honorable 
[House], but she said I really should be of use, as 
Lord Sefton was still very unwell and very low, and 
that as Lord Grey and Mr. and Lady Elizabeth Bulteel 
were the only company, she begged me to come and 
help the part}^ ; so what, 3^ou know, could I do ? The 
two Earls looked shockingly, and were still labouring 
under the grippe, and were as low as could be to 
begin with ; but altho' I say it who should not, I 
never had a better benefit than I had in bringing them 
both about. It is not usual to amuse a Prime 



576 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

Minister by jokes upon members of his own Cabinet ; 
but the 'Siamese youths' and the genteel comedy 
man Graham,* with imitations, stretched the veins in 
his forehead to their utmost, poor fellow. He said 
with the greatest innocence : — * Everybody told me 
there was nothing to be done without the two Grants,t 
and they have never been worth a farthing ! ' " 

" 9th. 

''. . . We had a rum go of it in the H. of Commons 
last night in our division and minority about issuing 
the Liverpool writ. I never saw such feeble devils 
as our young Cabinet Ministers. . . . Lord Sefton is 
again very unwell and confined to the house. Halford, 
who had seen him to-day, is himself very unwell with 
this grippe, and he says the way he is hunted after by 
a succession of invalids under the same complaint, is 
really beyond ! " 

"nth. 

". . . I dine on Friday at Lord Melbourne's, Satur- 
day at Lord Petre's, Sunday at Down Sally's. ... A 
card from Lady Jersey for Thursday — the first this 
season. Does she begin to think at last that she can't 
turn the Government out ? or is it in return for Grey's 
civility in sending as he did to the Beau and Peel to 
beg their assistance at a Council about the intended 
Coronation. Charles Greville carried the message 
from Grey, and they both seemed much pleased, and 
said they would attend." 

" Stoke, August 22nd. 

"... I am very fond of Melbourne. There is an 
absence of all humbug about him and a frankness and 
good-humour that, in a Secretary of State, are charm- 
ing. What a contrast to the wretched, feeble, artificial 
Roscius ! " J 

* Right Hon. Sir James Graham [1792-1861], First Lord of the 
Admiralty. 

t One Grant was the Right Hon. Charles Grant [i 778-1866], after- 
wards created Lord Glenelg. He held office in Lord Grey's Cabinet 
as President of the Board of Controul. The other was Robert Grant, 
M.P., a Canningite, appointed Governor of Bombay in 1834. 

% Marquess of LansdownCi 



1S30-31.] THE RACE FOR HONOURS. 577 

The approaching Coronation caused the usual 
fierce competition and humiliating supplications for 
peerages, baronetcies, and such-like. The good 
offices of Creevey, as a member of the Government, 
were enlisted in many quarters. Here is a note from 
the Lord Chancellor referring to the claim of one 
of his friends who desired some genealogical par- 
ticulars inserted in his patent of baronetcy. 



Lord Brougham and Vaitx to Mr. Creevey. 

"Dear C, 

" I return the letter of Lady W[alsham]. The 
insertion is wholly impossible. It is making the 
Crown and Great Seal a party to an assertion of 
pedigree, &c., &c., without a shadow of evidence, 
except their own assertion. For aught I can tell, 
there may be half a dozen people who say they are 
heirs-at-law of the 1661 man. 

" Yours ever, 

'' H. B. 

" H. Meux is grandson of an old baronet, and heir- 
at-law undeniably, and connected with the Blood 
Royal in two or three ways; but he has not the 
slightest allusion to it in his patent. Such things are 
never done for any of the idiots who think nothing 
so good as nick-names. I am sure Lady W. would 
have been far less pleased if her husband had made 
the best speech ever was made in Parlt, or her son 
had been Senior Wrangler. I hope the fools know it 
costs them above ;:^i200. It is twice the price of a 
peerage." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

*' Sept. 7th. 
"... I returned to the Honorable, and was in at 
the death, thank God ! of the Reform Bill Committee. 



5/8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXII. 

. . . Western can't be made a peer at present,* least 
Jack Tyrrell should supply his place in our house." 

"Sept. i6, 1831. 

''. . . Our Reform Report past last night without 
a division, and the only remaming stage is the 3rd 
reading of the Bill on Monday next, which it is 
calculated will occupy two, if not three nights. I am 
happy to say that our Earl Grey is as stout as a lion 
as to the result of the Bill in the Lords. If it is 
defeated, his mind is quite made up to prorogue for 
six weeks or two months — make a new batch of peers 
in the interval that shall be quite sufficient in number 
to secure the measure, and then start fresh with it. 
As Holland said to me the other day — if this bill is 
rejected, the question will be, will you have revolution 
or will you have a larger House of Lords ? and a very 
sensible man he is, with quite as warm an attachment 
to his office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 
as another person who shall be nameless to the 
Treasurership of the Ordnance ! " 

" Stoke, 20th. 

". . . Old Wickedshifts and I had a most agreeable 
duet to Stoke,t or at least within 3 miles of it, when 
he had fairly talked himself to sleep. . . . Sefton and 
I were more astonished at him than ever. By his 
conversation with old Talleyrand it appeared most 
clearly that Vaux had been intimately acquainted with 
every leading Frenchman in the Revolution, and 
indeed with every Frenchman and every French book 
that Tally mentioned. He always led in this conver- 
sation, as soon as Tally had started his subject. Our 
party altogether was a most agreeable one — Tally and 
the Dino, Esterhazy, M.\illegible'] his 2nd in command, 
Vaux, old Greville and Ly. Charlotte, Punch J and 
Henry, Alava, Luttrell and myself ... I got to the 
Honorable [House] before 12, when I found there had 
been a division ; in short, the Bill read a 3rd time 

* Mr. Western was made a peer in 1S33. 

t Brougham had taken Creevey down in his carriage from London. 

t Charles Greville. 



1830-31-] CORONATION GOSSIP. 579 

between 5 and 6 o'clock — a surprise, which did not 
serve the purpose which its wily authors intended!" 

" House of Commons, 22nd. 
*'. . . Johnn}^ has taken up his child in his arms, 
followed by a rare tribe of godfathers, and old 
Brougham approached us with proper dignity, and 
taking it into his arms carried it to his place and told 
their lordships the name given to it by the Commons. 
Then Lord ferey having moved it to be read the first 
time, which was done, moved the 2nd reading for 
Monday week 2nd October, which was agreed to — not 
a word said." 

" Brooks's, Sept. 23rd. 

", . . Let me mention a thing which Sefton told 
me when I was at Stoke. I was expressing some 
surmise about this late jaw respecting the Duchess of 
Kent's absence from the Coronation, and the cause of 
it, when, having according to custom bound me to 
secrecy, he said he would tell me all about it, having 
had it from Brougham. The offensive attack upon 
her for her absence, assigning pure pique as the cause 
of it, made its appearance in the Times newspaper, 
and this became food for all the others ; upon which 
B. sent his secretary Le Marchant to Barnes, editor 
of the Times, insisting upon knowing whose article it 
was, knowing as he did that it was pure invention, 
Barnes said it came from an authority that he implicitly 
relied on, but that he could not and would not give 
him up. Le Marchant, when he brought this report 
to B., gave it as his opinion that, if B, himself took 
Barnes in hand, the latter would strike. He was, of 
course, summoned accordingly, and having yielded to 
the thundering or seducing arguments of our Vaux, 
the libeller turned out to be no other than Henry de 
Ros, as at present Lord de Ros. It seems he and 
Barnes have been lately mixed up a good deal together 
at Paris, and this is the use de Ros has chosen to 
make of the connection. It is barely possible that 
de Ros may have believed this to be true, upon the 
authority of his sister, who, j^ou know, is Maid of 
Honor to the Queen, , . . The object, however, both 



580 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch, XXII. 

of sister and brother was clearly to do the Duchess of 
Kent an injury, and by such means to please the King 
and Queen, particularly the latter, who is known to 
have somewhat adverse feelings to the Duchess. The 
thing, however, was utterly destitute of foundation, 
the Duchess of Kent having most respectfully asked 
the King for permission to absent herself on account 
of her child's health, and the King, in the most gracious 
manner, having greatly extolled her conduct for the 
reasons assigned by her. 

" The Duchess of Kent wrote to her adviser, Vaux, 
in a strain of the greatest distress and vexation, but 
she is now pacified, and he has informed her of his 
discovery of the slanderer, but that he humbly requests 
of her R. Highness that she will not command him to 
disclose the author. In the mean time, as no one 
knows better how to turn any little matter to account 
than our Vaux, and as he knows that de Ros is to be 
a thorough-stitch opposer of our Reform Bill in the 
Lords, he sends for the innocent Leinster, and he 
states to him with unaffected regret that Lord de Ros 
has unfortunately compromised himself and character 
in an affair of great publick importance, and is entirely 
in the hands of the Government. Under such circum- 
stances, Vaux requests the Duke to urge his kinsman 
with all his might to use every possible caution against 
this matter being made publick. Now was there ever? 
Do you think de Ros's vote will be withheld by this 
plotofVaux's?" 

*' Brooks's, Oct. 6th. 
". . . What the result [of the division of the Lords] 
will be, no one knows, excepting this much, that their 
strength is in proxies, i.e., in those who are rejecting 
the Bill without hearing it." 

There is no mention in Creevey's letters of the 
result which took place on the 8th October. The 
Lords divided at six in the morning, throwing out 
the Bill by 199 votes to 158. A few days earlier, 
Macaulay had spoken the memorable words : — " I know 
only two ways in which societies can be governed — '■ 



1830-31.] THE REFORM AGITATION. 581 

by public opinion and by the sword ;" and immediately 
the reality of the alternative became apparent in the 
country. An agitation of violence, unparalleled since 
the Civil War, raged in every part of the kingdom, 
and the forces of the Crown proved unequal to cope 
with those of the populace in Bristol, Nottingham, 
and other places. Creevey paid a visit to Dublin 
during the autumn, in which it is not necessary to 
follow him. ; observing, in passing, that his passage 
from Holyhead to Kingstown occupied "just sixteen 
hours, the average trip being six hours and a half" 
He was back in time for the meeting of Parliament 
on 6th December, it having been prorogued on 
20th October. 



( 582 



^ 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

1832-1833. 

The year 1832 dawned upon a stricken field. The 
great battle for Reform seemed to have been fought 
and won. It is true that the forces upon each side 
were still in array upon their respective positions; the 
artillery of both was still discharging its thunder ; but 
the majority of 162 by which the Bill had been carried 
before the Christmas adjournment had shattered the 
last hopes of the Opposition. Excursions and alarums 
continued when the House met again, but all men had 
made up their minds to the inevitable, and were cast- 
ing about for some sure foothold under the new order 
of things. Nevertheless, the House of Lords, as it 
proved, were ready to renew the war. 

Mr. Crcevey to Miss Ord. 

" Jany. 20th, 1832. 

". . . Oh dear! what a squeak we had last night. 
To come down to a majority of only 20. Sad work, 
gentlemen, sad work ! However, it might have been 
worse, for the enemy to the last thought we were beat. 
We are bunglers when we quit the subject of Reform. 
. . . It is some comfort that in our other shop, the 
Lords, everything went well. Lord Grey had insisted 
on Lord Hill * voting against the Duke of Wellington, 
and he did so — looking very miserable." 

* As Commander-in-chief, and therefore a member of the Govern- 
ment. 



1832-33.] THE PROSPECTS OF THE BILL. 583 

" 30th. 

". . . Durham told me Tennyson * is moving heaven 
and earth to get the name of his office changed from 
'clerk' to that of ' secretary ' or anything else, alleging 
gravely as a reason that a very advantageous marriage 
for his eldest daughter had gone off, solely from the 
lover not being able to stand the lady's father being 
^ clerk!'' 

" Feb. 13th. 

". . . Yesterday I dined in Arlington Street, with 
Talleyrand, the Dino, Lord and Lady Cowper, the 
Dukes of Devonshire and Argyll, Mulgrave and 
Charles Greville, and a very agreeable day v^e had, in 
spite of the total deafness of the D. of Devonshire." 

" 2 1 St. 

"We had a great go of it last night : 53 boroughs 
fell in succession without a fight. But there is still 
great division in the Cabinet about making peers, 
altho' Lord Grey has now the King's permission 
under his own hand in writing to use his own discre- 
tion in making whatever addition to the Peerage he 
thinks necessary. Brougham's illness seemed to 
affect his vigor of mind, and made him rather on the 
jib on this subject ; but now he is himself again, and 
quite as vigorous as ever in his demand for new peers. 
Urey, Goderich, Holland and Lambton are on the 
same side, but there is a regular murrain in all the rest 
of the squad. . . . King Billy hates the peer-making, 
but as a point of honor to his ministers he gives 
them unlimited power." 

" JNIarcli 13th (my birthday). 

" We had a great party in Downing Street last 
night, the Tories being at least 3 to i to us Whigs. I 
had a most agreeable conversation with Lord Grey, 
quite at his ease in a corner, and I beg to record the 
substance of part of it, that we may see how his 
predictions correspond with the event. I asked him 
how he felt about this Bill of his — did he feel con- 
fident he could carry the 2nd reading ? — ' Oh certainl}^ 

* Clerk to the Board of Ordnance. 

2 R 



584 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

We shall be able to carry Schedule A — to give 
members to the great towns, and to carry the ^10 
qualification clause without any alteration.' I said I 
trusted he was not too sanguine about it, for that 
I never could believe it till I saw it ; but that, if he 
proved to be right, he need not care about the loss of 
Schedule B or anything else, because a new Parlia- 
ment would soon settle everything. . . . That he is 
under delusion in his expectations, I cannot yet bring 
myself to doubt. . . . You know that Earl Grey is 68 
this day, and his faithful Treasurer [Creevey] 64. 
I reckon it a great honor to have been born on the 
same day of the year with him." 

"22nd. 
". . . Our case stands thus. Wood, Lord Grey's 
secretary, and Wharncliffe went over their lists of 
the H. of Lords yesterday, and they lay down as law 
that the 2nd reading will be carried by — 12 ! " 

" Tower, March 24th. 
". . . Well, the Reform Bill closed with us last 
night. ... I have been drawing on the bank to-day 
in favor of Cox and Greenwood for upwards of 
;^5o,ooo. Is it your opinion they will ever get as 
much from me again ? My opinion is they will not. 
However, if I lose my office, I shall give up Downton, 
retire into the country, and write memoirs." 

" Bury St., 26th. 

". . . The Cabinet met yesterday and were tmani- 
mous. Thursday week was to be proposed for the 
2nd reading in the Lords, instead of this day week, 
because in the interval all the supplies for the year 
can be voted, and if, after that, the 2nd reading is 
rejected or outvoted — that very hour Parliament is to 
be prorogued, and peers created to any requisite 
amount." 

" 27th. 

"... I am in much better heart about the 2nd 
reading in the Lords. Altho' Wharncliffe and Har- 
rowby have few or no followers, yet it is so evidently 
fright of the consequences that a second rejection of 



1832-33.] LADY GREY'S PARTY. 5^5 

this Bill may produce that influences them in their 
present course, that the same fright has very naturally 
found its way into other members of the Tory camp. 
. . . Howick told me his father [Lord Grey] had this 
very day received letters from six Tory peers ex- 
pressing their intentions either to vote for the 2nd 
reading or to stay away, and thanking Lord Grey for 
not having carried this Bill by a new creation of 
Peers." 

" April 2nd. 

''. . . I have a card to dine with Lord Dudley for 
this day week, tho' it is said he is insane, and Halford 
told Sefton he was to be put under coercion this very 
day." * 

"4th. 
''Well, altho' I say it who should not, I really 
think I was very great at the Earl and Countess 
Grey's on Saturday. The party consisted of the Duke 
and Duchess of Sussex, who came together in the 
same carriage, and therefore their marriage could not 
be more distinctly announced ; f Lord and Ly. Cleve- 
land, Lord and Lady Morley, Lord and Lady Pon- 
sonby. General and Lady Grey, Bulteel and Lady 
Churchill, EUice, Sydney Smith and Mr. Creevey. As 
I opened the door for the ladies when they left the 
dining-room. Lady Cleveland said : — ' How agreeable 
you have been ! ' When Lady Grey came last, she 
put out her hand and said : — ' Oh thank you ! 
Mr. Creevey ; how useful you have been.' Lady 
Georgiana told me last night she had laughed out aloud 
in bed at one of my stories. . . . Such is my evidence 
of the success of a vain old man ! . . . I don't sup- 
pose there could be a stricter or more cordial friend- 
ship than between Lady Morley and myself She has 
a great deal of natural waggery, with overflowing 

* Lord Dudley died in the following year. 

t The Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of 
the 4th Earl of Dunmore, in 1793, but the marriage was dissolved in 
1794 as being contrary to the Royal Marriage Act. Lady Augusta 
died in 1830, when his Royal Highness declared his marriage with 
Lady Ceciha, ninth daughter of the Earl of Arran, and widow of Sir 
George Buggin. 



586 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

spirits, but she is more of a noisy man than a polished 
countess." 

" 17th. 

". . . Albemarle just tells me he has seen the 
King often since the event, and that nothing can equal 
his ecstacies. He justly observes * it is such a load off 
his mind.' He never slept a wink, he says, on Friday 
night till he learnt the result. To be sure, he ought 
to be pretty grateful to the jockey who rode and won 
the race for him." 

The jubilation of the Reformers was brief indeed. 
The Bill, indeed, had passed the second reading in 
the Lords on 6th April by a majority of nine, but this 
was only by help of the Tory Lords Wharncliffe and 
Harrowby, and their slender following, who were 
known by the ominous title of the Waverers. Such 
a majority could scarcely impart sufficient momentum 
to the measure to carry it through committee ; and, in 
effect, on the first evening after the Easter recess, the 
Government were beaten on Lord Lyndhurst's motion 
to postpone the clauses disfranchising the rotten 
boroughs. 

Thereupon, on 8th May, Lord Grey advised the 
King to create so many peers "as might ensure the 
success of the Bill in all its essential principles." 
King William's enthusiasm for the measure had 
greatly cooled since the second reading; he refused 
to take the step recommended ; and Lord Grey and 
his colleagues resigned on 9th May. His Majesty 
then commissioned the Duke of Wellington to form 
an administration. The Duke undertook to do so, 
on the understanding that he should bring in an 
extensive measure of Reform; but he utterly failed 
in the attempt to get Peel, Baring, and others to 
face work so contrary to their principles and past 




THE COUNTESS GREY AND TWO CHILDREN. 

[To face p. 586. 



I832-33-] LORD GREY RESIGNS. 587 

professions. In the end, Lord Grey was induced to 
withdraw his resignation, and before the end of the 
month a fresh Whig Ministry was in office. 



Mr. Crccvcy to Miss Ord. 

"Buiy Street, May 9th. 
". . . Ladies, I have lost my Tower ! Cen est fait 
de nous ! Dead as mutton, every man John of us, so 
help me Jingo ! You see, after our defeat in the Lords 
on Monday, a Cabinet was summoned for that night 
and the next day. The result was Grey and Brougham 
going down to Windsor yesterday at 3 o'clock to ask 
the King to create a sufficient number of peers in order 
to recover their ground and so secure the Bill, or, if 
he would not do that, to accept their resignation. 
They did not return till eleven ; but by means of 
my faithful and active enquirer, Sefton, who got to 
Crocky's a little past one, I found it was all over. 
The King had not even preserved his usual civility, 
had shown strong reluctance to the proposition, and 
concluded by saying Lord Grey should have his 
answer on Thursday. He did not even offer the poor 
fellows any victuals, and they were obliged to put into 
port at the George posting-house at Hounslow, and 
so get some mutton chops. . . . Sefton was with 
Brougham a little after nine this morning, and during 
his stay a letter came from Grey to B. enclosing 
the King's letter just received, in which his Majesty 
accepts their resignation. Let me not fail to add that 
Brougham, on having read it out aloud to Sefton, 
sprung from his chair and, rubbing his hands, declared 
that it was the happiest moment of his life ! I dare- 
say, from his late debility, that what he said he felt. 
. . . Our beloved Billy cuts a damnable figure in this 
business, because he is clearly influenced by our defeat 
on Monday. He permitted the Duke of Cumberland 
to tell his friends that he would make no peers, and 
then the rats were in their old ranks agam at once. 
All that / have to hope upon this occasion is that there 
will be the same dawdling in making out my successor's 
patent as there was in making out mine. I regret 



588 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

certainly the loss of position and of doing agreeable 
things to myself with my official resources ; but it was 
quite an unexpected windfall to me, has lasted much 
longer than I expected, and the recollection of the 
manner in which it fell to my lot will always be most 
agreeable to me. And so there's an end of the busi- 
ness, and it will never affect me more." 

" Tower, May loth. 

". . . Our perfidious Billy was the outside of 
graciosity to Lord Grey at the levee yesterday, and 
said Geo. the 2nd could not have felt more bitterly at 
parting from Sir Robert Walpole, nor Geo. the 3rd at 
parting with Lord North, than he did at parting with 
Lord Grey. Damned easy said, was it not? As to 
our Bruffam, the King implored him three times over 
not to leave him, used every argument to convince 
him that he was not bound to go out, and that, by 
remaining, the greatest possible publick benefit would 
accrue to the country. Brougham, however, had no 
alternative but to tell him that it was most distressing 
to his feelings to be urged to separate himself from 
Lord Grey, with whose fate his own was irrevocably 
fix'd. The King tried his hand, too, upon the Duke 
of Richmond, who was equally firm. . . . Upon leaving 
the Palace on his return to Windsor, Billy got rather 
roughly treated by the people, both at his own door 
and at Hyde Park Corner and other places." 

«' House of C, 1 8th. ; 
". . . To-night really all is right. If you doubt it, 
take Althorp's communication to our House, viz. : — 
' That the Government, having received securities for 
passing the Reform Bill, remain his Majesty's Minis- 
ters during pleasure.' This was followed by a most 
valuable declaration from Peel 'that he never would 
have joined the late attempted administration of the 
Duke of Wellington.' . . . Grey and Reform and the 
Tower for ever ! " 

" 26th. 
" One more day will finish the concern in the Lords, 
and that this should have been accomplished as it has 



1832-33.] THE REFORM BILL PASSED. 589 

against a great majority of peers, and without making 
a single new one, must always remain one of the 
greatest miracles in English history. The conqueror 
of Waterloo had great luck on that day ; so he had 
when Marmont made a false move at Salamanca ; but 
at last comes his own false move, which has destroyed 
himself and his Tory high-flying association for ever, 
which has passed the Reform Bill without opposition. 
That has saved the country from confusion, and per- 
haps the monarch and monarchy from destruction." 



" Tower, June 2nd. 

". . . In the House of Lords yesterday Grey, accord- 
ing to his custom, came and talked with me. It is 
really too much to see his happiness at its being all 
over and well over. He dwells upon the marvellous 
luck of Wellington's false move — ujDon the eternal 
difficulties he (Grey) would have been involved in had 
the Opposition not brought it to a crisis when they 
did. Their blunder he conceives to have been their 
belief that he would not resign upon this defeat on an 
apparent question of form. Thank God ! they did not 
know their man." 

"June 5 til. 

". . . Thank God ! I was in at the death of this 
Conservative plot, and the triumph of our Bill. This 
is the third great event of my life at which I have been 
present, and in each of which I have been to a certain 
extent mixed up — the battle of Waterloo, the battle 
of Queen Caroline, and the battle of Earl Grey and the 
English nation for the Reform Bill. If the Conserva- 
tive press is aware that the Master-in-Chancery who 
carried this Bill from the Lords to the Commons was 
our Harry Martin, lineal descendant of Harry Martin 
the regicide, what a subject it will be for them to- 
morrow ! " 

". . . The Reform Bill passed by Commission — 
commissioners Lords Grey, Brougham, Durham, Hol- 
land and Wellesley," 



590 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

" i8th. 

". . . How do you think the Duke of Wellington 
has been treated on this anniversary of the battle of 
Waterloo? He went to call on Wetherell at Lincoln's 
Inn on horseback, and, being recognised, so large a 
mob assembled there and shewed such very bad 
temper towards him, that he was obliged to send for 
the police to protect him home, and he did accordingly 
return in the centre of a very large body of police and 
a mob of about 2000 people, hooting him all the way." * 

" Tower, 27th. 

". . . Grey would not go to the Duke of Welling- 
ton's last night, tho' invited to meet the King ; but he 
had an audience with the King during the day to 
apologise for so doing. Lady Grey, too, was at the 
Opera, instead of being with her King and Queen. 
How like them both! and yet I suppose it was wrong." 

1" Buxton, Sept. 9th. 
"... I have been so lucky in picking up a play- 
fellow in Lady Wellesley. She sent me a message 
that she wished to renew her acquaintance with me ; 
since which I have walked for an hour with her daily, 
and in my life I never found a more agreeable com- 
panion. She always asked me to come again the next 
day, and I franked all her letters for her. Miss Caton 
told me a very pleasant saying of King Billy about 
Lady Wellesley, When she was in waiting at 
Windsor, some one, in talking of Mrs. Trollope's 
book, said : — * Do you come from that part of America 
where they " guess " and where they " calculate " ? ' — 

* The facts were not exactly as reported to Mr. Creevey. The 
Duke was returning from the Mint when the mob assembled. Attempts 
were made in Fenchurch Street to drag him from his horse, and in 
Holborn there was some stone-throwing. Four policemen — two on 
each side of his horse's head — escorted him to the end of Chancery 
Lane, down which the Duke turned and rode to Sir Charles Wetherell's 
chambers in Lincoln's Inn. The gate of New Street Square being 
closed behind him, the mob was kept at bay, while the Duke rode 
quietly out into Lincoln's Inn Fields and so home to Apsley House. 



1833-33] THE END OF THE OLD ORDER. 59I 

King Billy said : — ' Lady Wellesley comes from where 
they fascinate / '" * 

" Stoke, Nov. 4th. 

". . . Here are our Greys and Talleyrand and the 
Dine. . . . What an idiot I am never to have made 
myself a Frenchman. To think of having such a card 
as this old villain Talleyrand so often within one's 
reach, and yet not to be able to make anything of it. I 
play my accustomed rubber of whist with him." 

Creevey's retirement from Parliament was now 
imminent, for although Lord Radnor and other friends 
were anxious to find him a seat, and many proposals 
were made to him, things could not be so snugly 
arranged under the new order of things as had been 
possible in the good old days of pocket boroughs. 
Therefore, Lord Grey, Lord Sefton, and the rest of his 
many friends in the party now in power, concerned 
themselves to find him a comfortable billet outside 
Parliament. 

"Brooks's, Nov. 24th. 

*'...! got a bothering, long-winded letter from 
Wood, stating how very anxious both Lord Grey and 
Althorp were to have every official man in the House 
of Commons, and, in short, giving me a very in- 
telligible jog or hint that my place would be more 
usefully filled by a House of Commons man ; and then 
a place for life was oifered me in return which has 
just become vacant. And what do you suppose this 
place was ? It is Receiver-General of the Isle of Man 
— salary ;^5oo a year — residence in the said romantic 
island nine months only out of the twelve. ... I said 
the Isle of Man as a piece of humour was everything 
I could wish, and I could only treat it in that way ; 
that if Lord Grey wanted my place for the purpose 
of strengthening his Government in the House of 

* Lady Wellesley was a daughter of Mr. Caton of Philadelphia, 
U.S.A. 



592 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

Commons, it was quite at his disposal, with great 
obligations on my part for his manner of having given 
it me, and without asking for any terms whatever." 



Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

" Nov. 24th. 

''Dear Creevey, 

"I have been at work for you this morning, 
and am much satisfied with the result. Brougham 
says you cannot be left in the lurch, and laughs at the 
Isle of Man. Wood says, ' Very well : things must 
remain as they are at present, and we must try and 
find something that will suit him.' Ellis [? Ellice] was 
present : they both volunteered saying you had the 
first claim oi anybody, and MUST be considered; that 
even if you had no place now, you wd. have irresistible 
claims both on party and private grounds. In short, 
you stand as well as possible, if you don't take the 
romantic line, of which I know by experience 3^ou are 
quite capable." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Bury St., Nov. 28th. 
". . . Sefton said he did not wonder that I would 
not touch the Isle of Man, but it was the only thing 
they had then to offer, and that the applications for it 
were endless." 

" ist Dec. 
". . . Well, here goes for the last letter I shall ever 
frank ; and what of that ? We shall get others to frajik 
for us, and Monday will be the last day I shall ever 
receive a letter free, except at the Tower.* Ah, 
Barry, my dear ! there's the rub — the Tower, the dear 
Tower ; how long shall we have it ? " 

* Members of Parliament enjoyed the privilege, not only of 
franking letters, but of receiving them without paying the postage 
which ordinary recipients had to do to the tune of from \od, to \s. 6d. 
according to distance. 



I832-33-] THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT. 593 

"Dec. 5th. 
". . . Lord Grey has lost that one front tooth 
which has so long upheld his upper lip ; but his face, 
tho' altered by it, is much less so than I should have 
expected ; and his voice and manner of speaking not 
the least affected by it." 

Intense curiosity prevailed as to the appearance 
of the reformed Parliament, and all the political 
memoirs of that time abound with impressions there- 
of On the whole, the outward change was much 
less than most people expected — at least, as to the 
class of members returned. The position of parties, 
indeed, was of startling significance. For the first 
time in the history of Parliament the voice of the 
people had obtained articulate utterance, and its 
accents were a stern condemnation and rejection of 
those who had resisted Reform. The new House of 
Commons contained but 149 Tories against 509 Whigs 
and Liberals ; but some of the extreme men who were 
returned found their level, much to their own surprise 
and those of their friends, considerably lower than 
they had anticipated. Such is the mysterious but 
irresistible atmosphere of the House of Commons in 
all ages. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Feby. 2nd, 1833. 

". . . The start the other day was most favorable 
for the Government. Hume boasted beforehand that 
he was sure of 100 followers; so that 31 only was 
a woful falling off. It seems to be put beyond all 
doubt that Cobbett can do nothing. His voice and 
manner of speaking are tiresome, in addition to which 
his language is blackguard beyond anything one ever 
heard of O'Connell, too, was disgustingly coarse." 



594 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

"gth. 

". . . It is made perfectly manifest by their first 
vote that the Reformed Parliament is not a Radical 
one, when Joe Hume and the Rt. Honble. Tennyson 
and all the O'Connells and all the Repealers, with 
Cobbett to boot, could only muster 40 against 400!" 

" Tower, Feby. 28th, 1833. 

", , . What say you to the Duchesse de Bern's 
approaching accouchement ? Young Bourmont is said 
to be the lucky lover. What a termination to all her 
heroism to save the Crown of France for her son ! 
It is really too ridiculous : just the event to close the 
career of the Carlists." 

"March 14. 

" There has been most stormy work in the Cabinet 
for some time, and it has been with the greatest 
difficulty Grey and Althorp have submitted to 
Stanley's obstinacy about Irish tithes. The more 
violent Lambton I dare say would not submit, and he 
retires with an earldom, to cure his headaches, of 
course. What pretty physic! How delighted his 
colleagues must be that he is gone, for there never 
was such a disagreeable, overbearing devil to bear 
with in a Cabinet. . . ." 

"April loth. 

'' How are you all as to Influenza ? Here it spares 
no one — man, woman, or child, and it is a decided 
epidemic. I can scarcely see out of my eyes for it at 
this moment. . . ." 

"April 15th. 

"There is an unfavourable account of Charles 
Grenfell, who is laid up at Stoke with this influenza. 
My lord and my lady [Sefton] arrived between 9 and 
10 from Stoke on purpose to see Taglioni dance, but 
she was in bed with this complaint. There are 
seventeen servants at Stoke laid up with it, not one of 
whom can do a stroke of work." 



1832-33.] AFFAIRS IN ARLINGTON STREET. 595 

" 1 8th. 

". . . Sefton is seriously annoyed at the terrible 
state in which Lord Foley's family have been left. 
They have been literally without bread of late. The 
present young lord, who is excellent, was induced by 
his father to make himself answerable for his father's 
debts, and Iwill not have a farthing left. She has a 
jointure of ;^2,5oo a year, and the younger children 
(7 in number) have ;^3o,ooo amongst them. The 
family estate was ;!^40,ooo a year, all of which is 
either gone, or must go. Was there ever such 
wickedness ? " 

" May 20th. 

". . . There is the greatest fuss about the turn-out 
at Sefton's to-day. I don't know if you remember a 
picture of Charles X. in the dining-room, sent to the 
Sefton's b}^ the King himself The Dino says it is 
absolutely impossible that the Due d'Orleans can sit 
opposite that picture at dinner, and yet sa3^s that, in 
the situation of the Seftons, she would die rather than 
it should be taken away ; so all she praj^s of them is 
that it may not be in the dining-room." 

"25tll. 

". . . Would you believe it, that cursed Berkeley * 
has gone and married the woman he lived with, after 
his father behaving so beautifully as he did upon 
what he was led to consider their separation for ever. 
He settled ;^2oo a year for life upon her, ;^ioo upon 
the child, and all their debts paid ; and yet, the day 
before 3'^esterday, this colonel had the grace to 
announce to his father by letter from Gloucester that 
he is married, and that ;^6oo is absolutely necessary 
to free him from fresh difficulties. Sefton told me he 
would have nothing to reproach himself for to the last, 
and he has sent him this ;^6oo. ... I think for the 
purchase of the Lieut. Colonelcy of the 8th Hussars 
Sefton gave ;^ 11,000. I never could tell why, but he 
was certainly Sefton's favorite son, and a charming 

* Lieut.- Colonel the Hon. George Berkeley Molyneux, 2nd son of 
the 2nd Earl of Sefton. In Burke's Peerage Colonel Molyneux's 
marriage with Mrs. Eliza Stuart is dated 1824. 



596 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

return he has made him. . . . Yesterday I dined at 
Stanley's. Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Gordon were the 
only performers after dinner, and two more noisy 
vulgar fellows I never saw. Fitzroy Somerset, 
Kempt, McDonald and I settled them between our- 
selves afterwards." 

* "June 1st. 

"... I had a great deal of Duncannon's two eldest 
daughters [at Lady Grey's party]. Lord Kerry was 
in close attendance upon the second, as it is said he 
always is, and I trust he will marry her." * 

"Tower, June 12. 

" I begin here, not from having anything to write 
about, but from pure affection to the spot. As soon 
as I see my four turrets come in view when I turn 
into Tower Street, I think what agreeable companions 
they have been to me, and I always hope they may 
continue so for a little longer. 

" Here's the bower, the darling Tower, 
The Tower that Rufus planted ; 
Dear Norman King ! 'twas just the thing— 
The thing that Creevey wanted. 

" I'll tell you one project I wish my Tower to carry 
into execution for me. I have set my heart upon our 
all going to the Menai Bridge in the autumn. My 
allowance for going to Ireland gives me one pair of 
horses, and my place will easily give the leaders. So 
think of it, ladies, and gratify me by saying it shall be 
done, and it shall be called ' the Treat of the Towen' 
. . . Our dinner in Arlington Street was quite as gay 
as if Berkeley had not disgraced himself as he has 
done — the Manvers's, George Ansons and de Ros's, 
with the usual list of dandies and swindlers (D'Orsay 
included)." 

"15th. 

". . . We had a capital assembly at Lady Grey's, 
and I collected clearly that we are not going to resign, 
let the majority in the Lords against our Irish Church 

* He did so within a year. 



1832-33.] MISS BERRY'S DINNER-PARTY. 597 

Reform Bill be what it may ; so that is all as it should 
be. The great stumbling-block before us is — will the 
Lords consent to the future reduction of the Irish 
Bishops. It is a bitter pill for them to swallow : I 
don't see how the English Bishops are to stand it ; 
and yet I am perfectly convinced that if that bill is 
flung out in the Lords, the present House of Commons, 
either in this very session or the next, will commence 
operations for dislodging the Bishops from the H. of 
Lords altogether ; and eventually they must succeed." 

" 19th. 

"... I met Brougham at dinner yesterday at Miss 
Berry's, and a most agreeable dinner we had. In 
addition to Brougham — Sydney Smith, Ld. and Ly. 
Lyttelton, Ly. Charlotte Lindsay, Mr. and Mrs. Stan- 
ley (the member for Cheshire). She is a person 
greatly admired, a daughter of the late Lord Dillon. 
Ly. Lyttelton, you know, is a sister of Althorp's, and 
seemed quite as worthy, and in her dress as homely as 
he, tho' the Berry told me she was very highly accom- 
plished. It was shortly after I came into Parliament 
that Ward * and Lyttelton t came into the H. of 
Commons, each with great academical fame and every 
prospect of being distinguished public men. Poor 
Ward, with all his acquirements and talents, made 
little of it, went mad and died. Lyttelton having 
married, and being very poor, could not afford to 
continue in Parliament ; and tho' he wanted little to 
enable him to do so, the meanness of Lord Spencer 
would not supply him with it, and he has been an 
exile almost ever since. Tho' grown very grey for 
his age, he is as lively and charming a companion as 
the town can produce, and they are said to be the 
happiest couple in the world." 

" 20th. 

"... I have just heard from Tavistock, who is 
undoubted authority, that we have agreed to modify 
the clause in our Church Reform Bill which was so 
offensive to the Lords, with the understanding that 

* Afterwards ist Earl of Dudley, 
t Third Lord Lyttelton. 



598 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

they are not to oppose the Bill. The consequence of 
this must necessarily be that, when the fight does 
come (and come it must, sooner or later) the Govern- 
ment will have so much less sympathy and support 
because of this surrender. However, if the Tower 
does but float till next session of Parliament, it is 
much more than ever I expected ! " 

"July 6th. ■ 

" I met Lady Holland again on Thursday at Lord 
Sefton's. She began by complaining of the slipperi- 
ness of the courtyard, and of the danger of her horses 
falling; to which Sefton replied that it should be 
gravelled the next time she did him the honor of 
dining there. She then began to sniff, and, turning 
her eyes to various pots filled with beautiful roses 
and all kinds of flowers, she said : — ' Lord Sefton, I 
must beg you to have those flowers taken out of the 
room, they are so much too powerful for me.' — Sefton 
and his valet Paoli actually carried the table and all 
its contents out of the room. Then poor dear little 
Ly. Sefton, who has always a posy as large as life at 
her breast when she is dressed, took it out in the 
humblest manner, and said : — 'Perhaps, Lady Holland, 
this nosegay may be too much for you.' — But the 
other was pleased to allow her to keep it, tho' by 
no means in a very gracious manner. Then when 
candles were lighted at the close of dinner, she would 
have three of them put out, as being too much and too 
near her. Was there ever ? " 

" Denbies, 15th. 

". . . This spot is one of the most beautiful I 
know. ... I am in the second volume of poor 
Roscoe's Lorenzo de Medici. I read his Leo three or 
four years ago with great pleasure, and the present 
book with encreased delight. 1 can scarcely conceive 
a greater miracle than Roscoe's history — that a man 
whose dialect was that of a barbarian, and from whom, 
in years of familiar intercourse, I never heard above 
an average observation, whose parents were servants 
(whom I well remember keeping a public house), 
whose profession was that of an attorne}'-, who had 




LADY HOLLAND. 



[To face p. 598. 



l'832-33-] ROSCOE AS HISTORIAN. 599 

never been out of England and scarcely out of Liver- 
pool — that such a man should undertake to write the 
history of the 14th and 15th centuries, the revival of 
Greek and Roman learning and the formation of the 
Italian [illegible] — that such a history should be to the 
full as polished in style as that of Gibbon, and much 
more simple and perspicuous — that the facts of this 
history should be all substantiated by references to 
authorities in other languages, with frequent and 
beautiful translations from them by himself— is really 
too/ Then the subject is to my mind the most capti- 
vating possible : one's only regret is that poor Roscoe, 
after writing this beautiful history of his brother 
bankers the Medici, should not have imitated their 
prudence, and by such means have escaped appearing 
in that profane literary work, the Gazette t Oh dear ! 
what a winding up for his fame at last ! " 

«i7th. 
*'. . . Yoii must know that for months past I have 
been firing into Ellice, and through him into Durham, 
for their joint patronage of Barnes, the editor of the 
Times newspaper; being convinced that the vindictive 
articles in that paper against Lord Grey were written 
or dictated by Durham. . . . On Sunday I found that 
Lambton and Ellice have recently become at daggers 
drawn, and Ellice told me he had received such a letter 
of abuse from him in the Isle of Wight as had never 
been penned. The subject was nothing less than that 
he — Lord Durham — was going to withdraw his proxy 
from the support of Ld. Grey and his Government. 
Ellice admitted the connection between Durham and 
Barnes, and that the communications between them 
had been carried on by Lord Dover, just deceased. 
The said Durham, according to Ellice, is now Prime 
Minister to the Duchess of Kent and Queen Victoria, 
and they are getting up all their arrangements together 
in the Isle of Wight for a new reign ! You may 
remember that Durham was King Leopold's* right 
hand man when he was going to be King of Greece — 
drew all his State papers for him, and has always 
been his bottle-holder ever since. So nothing is more 

* Kin? of the Beleians: brother of the Duchess of Kent. 



600 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

likely than his becoming first favorite with the 
Duchess of Kent and Victoria in a new reign." 

"31st. 
"Well, you see with what flying colours we 
finished our Irish Church Bill last night. A great 
body of the Tories are absolutely furious with the 
Beau — for what wd. you suppose ? as two of them 
told me to my own self— /or want of pluck /"* 

" August 7th. 
". . . As I was walking in the streets, Lady Ciss, 
or Princess Ciss, passed me in her carriage, and 
immediately pulled up. She wished to know if I was 
disengaged, as the Duke [of Sussex] and she were 
going to dine quite alone, and they would be delighted 
if I would join them. Affable, was it not ? in a royal 
dame." 

Many and scathing had been Creevey's utterances 
and the expressions in his correspondence in derision 
of monarchs and monarchical institutions ; but time 
and the sweets of office had done much to mitigate 
the democratic ardour of the former " Man of the 
Mountain." The crowning touch to his reconciliation 
with the Head of the Constitution as it was, was put 
by the hand of King William himself. 

" Brooks's, August 9th. 

" My dinner yesterday with my beloved Sovereign 
was everything I could wish, and more, indeed, than 
I had a right to expect. Jemmy Kempt, according to 
my request, sent his carriage for me after it had set 
him down at the Palace. My only very little doubt 
was whether I should not have gone in shorts and 
silk stockings instead of trowsers ; and if I had, I 
should have been the only man in shorts in the room ; 
so that; you know, was very well. 

* The Duke of Wellington disgusted his Tory followers by speak- 
ing and voting for the second reading of the Government's Bill for 
regulating the Protestant Church of Ireland. 



I832-33-] KING WILLIAM'S LEVEE. 6oi 

" Well, after our being all assembled near half an 
hour, the doors were flung open, and in entered Billy, 
accompanied by his household ; and, having advanced 
singly into the middle of the room, the company 
formed a great circle around him. As I was not very 
anxious to attract his attention after all my sins 
against him,* I placed myself in the 2nd row of the 
circle. The first thing he did was to call Sir James 
Kempt t to him as his bottle-holder for the occasion. 
I then heard him say to him : — * There are two officers 
in the room who have never been presented to me ' 
(then mentioning their names which I did not hear), 
' bring them here to me.' So accordingly the two 
officers were conducted into the centre of the circle,, 
dropt upon their marrow-bones, and kissed hands. 

" Our beloved then said something else to Kempt 
which I could not hear ; but the General immediately 
looked about with all his eyes for his man ; and I am 
sure you will all partake of Nummy's t surprise when 
Kempt, having discovered me, said : — ' Creevey, the 
King wishes to speak to you ;' and I was conducted 
likewise into the middle of the circle. Then the King,, 
in the prettiest manner, said : — ' Mr. Creevey, how 
d'ye do? I hope you are quite well. It is a long 
time since I had the pleasure of seeing you. Where 
do you reside, Mr. Creevey ? ' Now, would you 
believe it? this was the only thing of the kind that 
took place. After this he went a little round the 
circle, talking to officers. I heard him ask General 
Bingham where he had lost his arm, and such kind of 
things. 

" My Scotch master, Jemmy,§ was so touched with 
the King's civility to myself that he came afterwards 
to me and said : — * Upon my soul, Creevey, after the 
King's gracious behaviour to you to-day, you jnust- 
come to the next levee ; for you never do go, and he 

* Creevey, as a Radical member, had not been accustomed to 
speak respectfully of the Duke of Clarence, and had voted steadily 
against the royal grants. 

t General the Right Hon. Sir James Kempt [1764-1854], com- 
manded the 8th Brigade at Waterloo. 

t One of Creevey's pet names in his family. 

§ Speaker Abercromby. 



602 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIII. 

has often asked me after you.' Can you solve this 
behaviour to me ? Was it a reproach for never doing 
my duty in v^aiting on my Sovereign? or does he 
think I have any scruples at coming near him after 
my behaviour to him and his brothers, and that he 
wishes to remove them ? At all events, I consider it 
as most curious, and as long as my Royal Master lives, 
and I live to v^ear my present uniform coat, he shall 
never have to say that I absent myself from his levee, 
whether in or out of office. ... I had a most agreeable 
dinner. To be sure, the King's speeches, and the 
length of each, were beyond ; but he is so totally 
unlike what we remember him — not a single joke or 
attempt at any merriment — as grave as a judge in 
everything he does, and as if he took a sincere interest 
in all he was saying — in short, he made himself a real 
fef of mine. . . . When I told Brougham, whom I sat 
next at Althorp's at dinner on Saturday, of the King's 
speech to me, he said it was the image of him as the 
best-natured and kindest-hearted man in the world, 
and that it was clearly meant to show me that he had 
no resentment or recollection, even, of any former 
personal hostilities from me, and that I had no occasion 
to avoid him. What the opinion of so sincere a creature 
as B. is worth is one thing; but I really think one 
can't find out another meaning for Billy's conduct. If 
it is the real one, never was a Sovereign so kind and 
condescending." 

« iSth. 
"The Earl [of Sefton] called and took me to the 
levee yesterday in his fat London coach, sitting with 
his back to the horses, and giving Mr. Treasurer the 
post of honor, and so home again to Mrs. Durham's * 
great delight. My Sovereign only said : — ' How d'ye 
do, Mr. Creevey ? ' — I did not expect more. It was a 
very slender levee, but I had an agreeable playfellow 
in Lord Grosvenor, ci-devant Belgrave,t and Lord Grey 
came to me just after I had passed the King, saying 
in his prettiest manner : — ' Creevey, I have not seen 
you for an age ! ' " 

* Creevey's landlady. 

t Afterwards 2nd Marquess of Westminster. 



( 603 ) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

1833. 

Mr. Crccvey to Miss Ord. 

"Stoke, August 19th, 1833. 

"Brougham, Plunket, Chas. Greville and Sefton 
have gone to town, and I am to entertain Lord John 
Russell who stays to dinner to-morrow. I am just 
going to ride with him and the ladies ; and, by Sefton's 
desire, to write my name at the Castle [Windsor]. 
Next Wednesday is the King's birthday, when there 
is a great dinner there. The Seftons have got their 
invitation ; so we shall see if I am equally successful 
in my meanness. Don't you think I am become too 
great a toady of Royalty ? " 

"Tower, 31st. 

"... I am reading the newly published corre- 
spondence between Horace Walpole and Sir Horace 
Mann, his earliest friend and Minister at Florence. 
Considering who the writer was, and his position, the 
book can't tail of being interesting — very — but he is a 
trifling chap after all. ..." 

Lady Louisa Molyncux to Mr. Crcevey. 

"Stoke, Sept. 3, 1833. 

". . . We do not hear much of cholera in this neigh- 
bourhood, but all the sherry in the cellar is drunk, 
and Reeves has been obliged to ask for a fresh supply; 
he cannot get people to drink his French wines, entirely 
from fear of cholera. . . ." 



604 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIV. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Stoke, Sept. 5th. 

"... I have for the first time boarded an omnibus, 
and it is really charming. I quite long to go back in 
one to Piccadilly. . . . Monday brought all Europe 
under our humble roof at Stoke — at least the great 
powers of it by their representatives. There was 
England well represented by Earl Grey, with my 
lady, Ly. Georgiana and Charles; France by Talleyrand 
and the Dino; Russia by the Prince and Princess 
Lieven ; Austria by Esterhazy, with the addition of 
Weissenberg, the Austrian delegate to the Conference ; 
and Prussia by Bulow. But the female Lieven and 
the Dino were the people for sport. They are both 
professional talkers — artists quite, in that department, 
and the Dino jealous to a degree of the other. We had 
them both quite at their ease, and perpetually at work 
with each other ; but the Lieven for my money ! She 
has more dignity and the other more grimace. . . . 
The Greys had just come from Windsor Castle. Lady 
Grey, in her own distressed manner, said she was really 
more dead than alive. She said all the boring she 
had ever endured before was literally nothing com- 
pared with her misery of the two preceding nights. 
She hoped she never should see a mahogany table 
again, she was so tired with the one that the Queen 
and the King, the Duchess of Gloucester, Princess 
Augusta, Madame Lieven and herself had sat round 
for hours — the Queen knitting or netting a purse — the 
King sleeping, and occasionally waking for the pur- 
pose of saying: — 'Exactly so, ma'am!' and then sleep- 
ing again. The Queen was cold as ice to Lady Grey, 
till the moment she came away, when she could afford 
to be a little civil at getting quit of her. . . . 

'' We asked Lord Grey how he had passed his 
evening : ' I played at whist,' said he, ' and what is 
more, I won £2, which I never did before. Then I 
had very good fun at Sir Henry Halford's expense. 
You know he is the damnedest conceited fellow in the 
world, and prides himself above all upon his scholar- 
ship — upon being what you call an elegant scholar; 
so he would repeat to me a very long train of Greek 



1833.] THE COURT AT WINDSOR. 605 

verses ; and, not content with that, he would give me 
a translation of them into Latin verses by himself. 
So when he had done, I said that, as to the first, my 
Greek was too far gone for me to form a judgment of 
them, but according to my own notion the Latin verses 
were very good. " But," said I, " there is a much 
better judge than myself to appeal to," pointing to 
Goodall, the Provost of Eton. " Let us call him in." 
So we did, and the puppy repeated his own pro- 
duction with more conceit than ever, till he reached 
the last line, when the old pedagogue reel'd back as if 
he had been shot, exclaiming : — " That word is long^ 
and you have made it short!'' — Halford turned abso- 
lutely scarlet at this detection of his false quantity. 
"You ought to be whipped. Sir Henry," said Goodall, 
"you ought to be whipped for such a mistake."' . . , 
At dinner Lady Grey sat between Talleyrand and 
Esterhazy. I, at some little distance, commanded a 
full view of her face, and was sure of her thoughts ; 
for, as you know, she hates Talleyrand, and he was 
making the cursedest nasty noises in his throat" 

Lady Louisa Molyneux to Mr. Creevey \jn Ireland]. 

" Stoke, Oct. 30th. 

". . . There never was such weather; we are sit- 
ting with open windows, blinds down, and old Lady 
Salisbury is reading out of doors as if it was the 
middle of July. She is more youthful than ever, and 
leaves us to-morrow to be at the Berkhampstead ball, 
which she attends annually. She had better go to 
Portugal and assist Miguel, for she makes a better 
fight for him than any of his adherents. . . . Poor 
Alava writes in great uneasiness about his patrie, but 
does not forget to finish his letter with imlle choses 
a toiite la fainille et a Creevey. , . . Olivia de Ros's 
marriage* was a grand ceremony, the chapel f hung 
with crimson velvet, the bride dressed by the Queen, 
the parish register signed by the King, the Queen and 
Duke of Wellington; quantities of royal presents, &c. 

* To the Hon. Henry Wellesley, who succeeded his father as 
Lord Cowley, and was created Earl Cowley, 
t St. George's, Windsor. 



6o6 - THE CREEVfiY PAPERS." [Ch. XXIV. 

. . . The Stanleys have been here for a day. He* 
made himself tolerably agreeable, except in his ex- 
treme flippancy to Lord Melbourne." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

*' Besborough, Nov. 3rd. 

"... I wish to record a point or two of political 
history not generally known. When Lord Grey 
determined upon beginning his administration by a 
reform in Parliament, he named Lord Durham, Lord 
John Russell, Lord Duncannon and Sir James Graham 
as the persons to prepare a bill for that purpose ; and 
they did prepare the bill, of which Lord urey knew 
not one syllable till it was presented to him all ready, 
cut' and dry. When he had read it, he shrugged up 
his shoulders, and ^ave it as his opinion that the King 
would never stand it. However, upon his taking it to 
Brighton the King showed no decided hostility to it ; 
and, as we know. Lord Greys measure of Reform was 
ultimately carried. It was towards the conclusion of 
the labors of this committee of four that Ld. Durham's 
anger became first excited. Lord Grey, to please the 
Duke of Richmond, added him to the four other com- 
mittee-men ; a step that in itself gave great umbrage 
to Durham. From that day forth, he and the' Duke 
fought like cat and dog. The next thorn in Durham's 
side was Stanley. They were always opposed to 
each other upon Church matters; and when the 
Church Bill of the latter was brought forward last 
session, Durham addressed to the Cabinet his stric- 
tures thereon (and very able and severe they were) 
accompanied by a complaint that he — Durham — had 
not been consulted. These the Cabinet forwarded to 
Stanley without observations (was there ever such 
child's play ?). Stanley was equally fierce in reply. . . . 
At a Cabinet dinner shortly after, this hitherto latent 
fire came to a blaze between these worthies. Poor 
Grey attempted at least to assuage it ; but, as he 
unfortunately rather leaned to Stanley, upon the 
ground of Durham never coming to the Cabinet, 
Durham fell upon him with all his fury, said that he 
* Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby [Prime Minister]. 



I833-] PRIVATE POLITICAL HISTORY. 607 

was the last of men that ought to have made that 
charge, knowing as he did that the cause of his 
absence was devotion to his dying child, and then 
went on to say that Grey had actually been the cause 
of the boy's death. . . . Poor Althorp put his head 
between his hands and never took them away for 
half an hour. It was this frightful scene that pro- 
duced the resignation of Durham, tho' he had been 
long brooding over it. 

" Let me give you another specimen of the manner 
in which our great men govern us. Lord Anglesey 
said to Duncannon at Dublin : — ' Mr. Stanley and I 
do very well together as companions, but we differ 
so totally about Ireland that I never mentioti the subject 
to him ! ' * Anglesey then showed Duncannon a 
written statement of his views respecting Ireland, 
which he said he had sent to Lord Grey. Duncannon 
says nothing could be better, and he asked him why 
he had not addressed it to the Cabinet. — * Oh,' said 
Lord Anglesey, ' I consider myself as owing my 
appointment exclusively to Lord Grey, and don't 
wish to communicate with any one else.' When 
Duncannon talked to Grey on the same subject, Ld. 
G. said he was apprehensive of offending Stanley 
by laying these opinions of Anglesey's before him. 
Now which do you think of all these gentlemen 
deserves the severest flogging. Duncannon says that 
both Grey and Althorp entirely agree with him in 
opposition to Stanley about Irish matters, and that 
both one and the other avoid touching upon the 
subject to Stanley, least they should offend him. 

''One more point of private political history. 
Brougham has again and again in my presence taken 
merit to himself for his firmness in insisting upon 
the dissolution of Parliament when the Government 
was beat upon Gascoigne's motion in 183 r.f The 
facts of that case are as follows. On the day after 
that division, Duncannon dined at Durham's with 

* Lord Anglesey was for the second time Lord Lieutenant (1830-33), 
and Stanley was Secretary for Ireland under the Home Office. 

t When Ministers were left in a minority of 22 on General Gas- 
coyne's motion against reducing the number of members for England 
and Wales, 



6o8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIV. 

Lord Grey and others. Durham was furious for dis- 
solution; Grey and the others became of the same 
opinion, and that it must take place the very next 
day. Grey sent a messenger out of hand to Windsor, 
begging the King to be in town next day at eleven. 
He then sat down to write the King's speech for the 
occasion, and begg'd Duncannon to get a coach, 
and to go and bring the Clerk of the Council and 
Brougham there directly. When Duncannon arrived 
at Brougham's house, the servant said my lord was 
going to bed and could not be seen/ However, as 
you may suppose, Duncannon forced his way up ; 
but Brougham, when informed of what was passing, 
said he would be no party to the proceeding — that 
he entirely disapproved of it, and should go to bed 
directly, adding that he had never been consulted. How- 
ever, I need not say that he went, and that he made 
up for the affront of never being consulted by giving 
out that it was his own act and deed." 

"Bury St., Saturday, Nov. i6th. 

^'I am only just this instant (5 o'clock) arrived 
in the same cloathes in which I wrote to you from 
Dublin on Thursday. Barry, my dear, if any sensible, 
well-informed man shall ever tell you that a new 
channel is discovered from the Irish Sea to the 
Mersey, thro' which Irish steamboats of all dimen- 
sions may always pass, let the state of the tide be 
what it will — tell such a philosopher that he lies, and 
that the truth is not in him ; for, having had the most 
charming and successful and swiftest passage of the 
season up to 4 o'clock yesterday morning, so as to 
expect to be in by 5, it was discovered there was not 
water enough for us to proceed. We were shifted 
at that pleasant hour into another steamer drawing 
less water, and even for this we soon found there 
was not enough, and so had to undergo the agreeable 
ceremony of lying at anchor for upwards of 3 hours, 
and did not reach Liverpool till i past 9, too late for 
tlie early coaches." 

« 19th. 

" Amongst the many instances one has known of 
London gossip, jaw and gullibility, my Irish fame is 



i833-] LORD HOLLAND'S ABILITY. 609 

no bad specimen. When I went to Whitehall on 
Saturday, poor Mrs. Taylor began: — 'And so, Mr. 
Creevey, there is no living in the Castle at Dublin 
without you ; so, I assure you. General Ellice writes 
to every one.' — When I saw Sefton the same night 
he said : — * Grey has a letter from Wellesley * in 
which he says you are the most agreeable fellow he 
has seen for ages, and that your visit to them has 
been most valuable.' — Col. Shaw, a belonging of 
Wellesley's in India of 30 years' standing, whom I 
saw for the first time in Dublin, writes word that 
'Mr. Creevey by agreeableness has greatly con- 
tributed to Ld, Wellesley's happiness, and to his 
years /' . . . A note from Lady Grey yesterday says : 
— ' Pray, pray ! dear Mr. Creevey, dine here on 
Friday.' In the course of the morning Esterhazy 
came after me to dine with him yesterday, and Kempt 
has been here this morning to invite me for Thurs- 
day. Sefton had a letter from Brougham and Vaux 
from Brighton, begging him to secure Creevey for 
dinner to-day." 

*' Tower, Nov. 23. 

"... I never was so much struck with the agree- 
ableness of Lord Holland. I don't suppose there is 
any Englishman living who covers so much ground 
as he does — biographical, historical and anecdotical. 
I had heard from him before of the volumes upon 
volumes he still has in his possession of Horace 
W^alpole's, entrusted to him by Lord Waldegrave, 
which Lord Holland advises the latter never to allow 
to be published, from the abusive nature of them ; but 
I was happy to hear him add that there was no say- 
ing what circumstances might induce a man to do ; so 
it is quite clear that, with Lord Waldegrave's wonted 
{illegible'], the abuse will some day see the light. I 
never knew before that Horace was not the son of 
Sir Robert Walpole, but of a Lord Hervey, and that 
Sir Robert knew it and shewed that he did. 

"My lady [Holland] was very complaining, and 
eating like a horse. Lord Holland quite well, and 
yet his legs quite gone, and for ever — carried in 

* Lord Wellesley had succeeded Lord Anglesey as Lord 
Lieutenant. 



6lO .. THE CREEVEY PAPERS. " [Ch. XXIV. 

and out of the carriage, and up and down stairs, and 
wheeled about the house. , . . You mentioned seeing 
Berkeley Molyneux * and his Pop. The other day, his 
sisters told me that when he was at Croxteth lately 
on a visit to Mull,t old Heywood took him into a 
corner of the room and put ;^5oo into his hand, and 
I have no doubt will leave him a handsome fortune. 
He was always his favorite, and he must have a 
fellow feeling for him, for he himself adopted a 
London Pop imported into Liverpool by an old 
fellow I well remember, and when he died old Arthur 
took her and was married to her many years before 
her death. As she was a remarkably good kind of 
woman, he may perhaps think that Berkeley'^ tit may 
be the same." 

" Brooks's, Nov. 24th. 
". . . Yesterday at the Hollands we had Lord Grey 
and Lord J. Russell, Charles Fox and Lady Mary, 
Henry and his little bride,! Sidney Smith, John 
Ponsonby (Duncannon's eldest son) § and i-Ellice the 
elder. Lady Holland introduced me to Henry's wife 
in a very pretty manner as one of Henry's oldest and 
kindest friends. The said Lady Augusta I consider 
as decidedly under three feet in height^ — the very 
nicest little doll or plaything I ever saw. She is a 
most lively little thin^ apparently, very pretty, and I 
dare say up to anything, as all Coventrys are, or at 
least have been. ... I can scarcely believe the story of 
Lady Jersey and Palmerston, tho' it was very current 
that, when Lady Cowper went abroad, Palmerston 
transferred his allegiance to Lady Jersey."^ 

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

" Croxteth, Nov. 26th. 

" Dear Creevey, 

" Pray write everything you hear. What do 
you think of the rumours of changes ? Somehow or 

* Second son of the 2nd Earl of Sefton. 
t Lord Molyneux, his elder brother. 

X Henry Fox, afterwards 4th Lord Holland, married in 1833 Lady 
IVlary Augusta, daughter of the 8th Earl of Coventry. 
§ Afterwards 5th Earl of Bessborough. 
\ Lord Palmerston married the Countess Cowper in 1S39. 



1833-] GOSSIP. 6ii 

another I feel that things are not quite right and that 
Grey's long absence was injurious. He certainly 
seemed rather bitter about Palmerston's intimacy 
with Ly. J[ersey], and I think with reason. Thank 
God she is gone, and that she was reduced to take 
[Sir Robert] Wilson as an escort. . . . Stanley has 
had several fainting fits, but is much better. They 
say it is stomach. If anything was to happen to 
him, what would become of us in the H. of C. ? " 



Mr. Creeviy to Miss Ord. 

«28th. 

"... I dined at Essex's again yesterday— company, 
Spring Rice, Chas. Grant, Sydney Smith, another and 
myself. Sj'^dney thanked me in the name of mankind 
for the successful resistance I had made to Old 
Madagascar* at dinner on Sunday. He said, Ije had 
never seen Ld. Grey laugh more heartily in his life, 
and then he told the whole stor}'- to Essex and Co." 

. " Dec. 7th. 

"At Essex's yesterday we had Lord Grey, Mel- 
bourne and Palmerston ; and of the minor poets — 
Spring Rice, Poulet Thomson, Luttrell and myself 
Althorp was prevented coming by the gout. . . . Ld. 
Grey seems to have changed his opinion all at once 
about Talleyrand and the Dino. He said he had no 
doubt they were both against him and in favor of 
Wellington, which is the entire reverse of the opinion 
I had heard him uniformly express on the same 
subject." 

Earl of Sefton to Air. Creevey. 

" Croxteth, Dec. 14th. 
". . . What you say about Ld. Grey's change of 
tone towards Talleyrand is quite intelligible to me. 
I trace it entirely to Lady Keith, who has great 
influence over the whole Grey family, and is in con- 
stant correspondence with them. She is in great 
habits of intimacy with the D. of Orleans — has the ear 

• Lady Holland. 



6l2 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXIV. 

of the Court, and hates Talleyrand. Her object is to 
get him recalled, and to replace him by her husband 
[illegible]. She thinks making him and Ld. Grey ill 
together would drive Talleyrand to resign. I can tell 
you, in corroboration of this, that Monsr. de Bacourt 
told me that nothing wd, contribute more to decide 
T. to return here than Ld. Grey's shewing a decided 
anxiety for it, and at his suggestion I got G. to write 
a most kind and pressing letter to T., representing the 
importance he attached to his coming back, both with 
a view to keeping up the friendship between the two 
countries, and to the settlement of the Dutch business. 
. . . Ly. jersey is now living in great intimacy with 
Louis Philippe and the D. of Orleans, so if these two * 
don't do mischief, it will not be for want of pains." 

" 22nd. 
"... I must just give you an extract from a letter 
of Mme. de Dino's this moment arrived : — * Sans una 
tres excellente lettre de Ld. Grey, je ne crois pas que 
M. de Talleyrand se serait decide a retourner dans 
votre chere Angleterre.' She has no idea that I was 
the cause of that letter, and never will. Bacourt will 
keep it to himself. The whole effect would be spoiled 
by their knowing it." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Richmond, Dec. 24, 1833. 

" I dined at Essex's on Saturday. The feature of 
the day was Parks,^ a Birmingham attorney of whom 
I had heard much, but had never seen before. He is, 
in truth, a very remarkable man in every respect. He 
is mix'd up with all classes — Church, Chapels and 
State ; and as well, or better, calculated for utility than 
any man I know or have heard of He is Secretary 
to the Corporation Commission, and all the beneficial 
results of that most judicious and successful measure 
are attributable to him. He has great influence in the 
Trade Unions ; he is a prime leader of the Dissenters. 

* Lady Jersey and Lady Keith. 

t Joseph Parkes [1796-1865], who acted as go-between with Whigs 
and Radicals ; an energetic organiser and demagogue. 



1833.] JOSEPH PARKES. 613 

It was a curious thing to hear a provincial attorney 
observe that the Liturgy of the Church had not been 
altered for 200 years, and that he was perfectly con- 
vinced that a very slight alteration in it would let in 
all the leading Dissenting establishments. He is most 
decidedly for this union. ... I did nothing but fire 
into Lord Grey all dinner-time on Sunday about this 
said Parks; and, to say the truth, I found the soil 
quite ready for a strong impression. He said that, 
from all he had heard of him, he had formed a great 
opinion of him, with a strong desire to see him ; and 
then he got on to say that he would know him ; upon 
which our dear Lady Grey, in a tone and manner quite 
her own, said : — ' I hope there is no Mrs. Parks ! ' — Is 
it not the image of her ? 

•'. . . We expect to hear to-day of James Brougham's 
death. There is much speculation abroad whether the 
event will drive the Chancellor mad. It is quite true 
that his brother's influence over him was as unbounded 
as it was miraculous, for no one ever discovered the 
slightest particle of talent in James of any kind. That 
he was his secret instrument, spy or anything else 
upon every occasion, I am quite sure." 



Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey. 

"Croxteth, Dec. 30th, 1833. 

" I cannot resist sending you another extract from 
a letter from Me. de Dino received yesterday. I par- 
ticularly wished to know if she had seen the Flahauts 
at Paris. Now you must know that nothing could 
exceed Talleyrand's kindness to Flahaut all his life. : 
He has been his patron and protector — in short, a 
father to him.* Thus she writes : — ' Je n'ai rien vu du 
tout des Flahaut. Le mari n'a pas meme mis une 
carte chez M. de T. II les a recontre aux Tuileries, 
ou Monsr. de Flahaut n'a pas meme salue. Cela a fait 
dire un tres joli mot a Monsr. de Talleyrand, a qui on 
demandait I'explication de I'impolitesse de Monsr. de 
Flahaut. " C'est que je I'ai apparemment mal eleve ! " ' 
Nothing could be neater." 

* People said he was literally his father. 



( 6i4 ) 



CHAPTER XXV. 
1834. 

Creevey was no longer in Parliament, but he had a 
heartwhole devotion to Lord Grey, whose fortunes he 
followed with intense solicitude and pride. Fierce, 
then, was his wrath against those who brought about 
his retirement, especially against Brougham, for whom 
he could find no more fitting sobriquet than "Beel- 
zebub." Retrenchment was marching hand in hand 
with Reform, and among the doomed offices was 
Creevey's comfortable department of Treasurer of the 
Ordnance. It is amusing to find him who had so 
vehemently clamoured in Opposition for the sup- 
pression of patent places, now denouncing as vehe- 
mently the action of the Commission then sitting 
for carrying out that very policy. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Brooks's, Feb. 1 2th. 

"I dined at the Hollands on Saturday, where I 
suppose the party was meant to be wits and men of 
letters, with the exception of Essex, who is neither. 
Rogers and sister. Tommy Moore, Luttrell, Hallam 
the historian and Creevey the pamphleteer. When 
Lord Holland was wheeled in after dinner, he was 
lodged on my right side, and was as agreeable as ever 
he could be. I have been quite surprised of late at 
the endless variety of his conversational matter." 



iS34-] CREEVEY'S OFFICE THREATENED. 615 

' ^ " Feby. 14th. 

" I was walking through St. James's Park to-day 
and seeing Lord John Russell mounting his horse at 
the Paymaster's door, I went up merely to have a 
word with him about Graham's ridiculous conduct in 
the House last night.* He put out his hand saying: — 
' Ah ! Treasurer, how d'ye do ? ' to which I replied : — 
' Ah ! Treasurer for how long ? ' He laughed and said 
nothing. Now, as he never called me treasurer before, 
and he must know if the place is to live only a few 
weeks longer, he surely could not have addressed me 
in this way as a joke." 

" May 3rd. 

". . . Poor old Lady Greyt little thought what 
would become of her money. She left all she had to 
Lady Hannah,! and she again left it to her son, the 
young Bear. He, being a very aspiring young man 
of fashion, has formed a connection with Duvernay 
the opera dancer, to whom he has paid ;^2ooo down, 
and has contracted to pay her ;^8oo a year ! The dear 
young creatures were seen going down in a chaise 
and four to Richmond. Capt. Gronow, the M.P. and 
duellist, negociated the affair for the young Bear§ 
with the dancer's parents." 

•' May 7th. 

"... I thought the Beau looked horridly at the 
levee; but his uniform of the Blues plays the devil 
with him. He should be always in red. You will see 
by your paper that there was a split last night in our 
Cabinet, between Stanley and Lord John Russell — 
the latter, of course, declaring for more popular and 

* Sir James Graham, Mr. Stanley, Lord Ripon, and the Duke of 
Richmond had resigned office owing to disapproval of the Irish Church 
Bill. 

t Wife of the ist earl, died in 1822. 

X Her youngest daughter, married ist to Captain Bettesworth, R.N., 
2nd to the Right Hon. Edward Ellice, M.P. She died in 1S32. 

§ Edward Ellice, afterwards of Invergarry and M.P., married in. 
1834 Miss Katherine Balfour of Balbirnie, who died in 1864. In 1867 
he married the widow ot Alexander Speirs of Elderslie, and died 
in 1S80. 

2 T 



6l6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

healing measures towards Ireland. . . . Tavistock* 
told me he had long seen this split would come, but 
that he did not think the crisis was come for absolute 
separation between the different parties in the Cabinet, 
tho' he thought it must come if Stanley and others 
did not relax. I am for having Stanley severely 
whipped : it would do him a power of good. . . . 

" When I was at Sefton's to-day he said : — ' I have 
a proposition to make to you, old fellow, which is that 
you dine here every day that you are not engaged 
elsewhere.' To which I was pleased to accede, and 
behaved very handsomely by declaring that I did not 
consider the contract as binding for any year after the 
present one, without a renewal on his part of the 
proposal." 

«8th. 
" Our Government was in the greatest danger all 
yesterday. John Russell's gratuitous opinion and 
declaration of secession in the House of Commons the 
night before, if the revenues arising from the Irish 
Tithes Bill were not left to the appropriation of 
Parliament, roused all the fire of those in the Cabinet 
who contend that such revenues are to be applied 
exclusively to ecclesiastical purposes. The indigna- 
tion of the latter party was the greater, because it was 
understood, and John Russell had particularly stipu- 
lated not to raise that question. Stanley actually 
resigned yesterday, and his bottle-holders are Pighead 
Richmond and Canting Graham. . . . However, at a 
Cabinet meeting, Lord Grey having announced his 
fixed intention of retiring at once from publick life if 
the whole was not instantly made up, and old Wicked- 
ishifts having made some very judicious threats of 
opposing and exposing with all his might any Govern- 
ment but the present one in its present formation, the 
thing was at last settled in peace and harmony, and 
nothing more is to be said about appropriatmi, till 
there is something to appropriate, which can't be for 
a year at least. . . . Grey told them that the conduct 
of the King had been so uniformly kind and gracious 

* Afterwards 7th Duke of Bedford, eldest brother of Lord John 
Russell. 



I834-] ROGERS'S DINNER-PARTY. 617 

to him, and Grey knew so well the difficulties he [the 
King] would have to encounter in forming a new 
Cabinet, that he thought it would be very dishonorable 
to desert him, if it could be avoided. . . . Brougham 
said to Sefton : — ' I followed Grey, and I observed 
that I was very differently situated from my friend 
Lord Grey — that, while he considered his political life 
as closing, I considered my own as only just beginning 
— that I never felt younger or more vigorous — that, 
from the moment the present Government was broken 
up, all my occupation and resources should be devoted 
to destroying any other one — that there was nothing I 
would not undertake to accomplish that object — that 
I would attend all political meetings out of Parliament, 
publick and private, and that from the present temper 
of the publick, which I well knew, 1 was as sure as I 
was of my existence that no Government but an ultra- 
Liberal one, both in Church and State affairs, would 
be endured for a week. ... Of course,' he continued, 
' you will see my object was to frighten the damned 
idiots Stanley and Co. from attempting by themselves, 
or be coalescing with Peel and Co., to set up a Church 
government; and I think I did so.' . . . Was there 
ever such a chap in the world as Wickedshifts ? Who 
do you think dined with him yesterday ? — The Duke 
of Gloucester, and no other rnan ! " 

"Stoke, iSth. 
"... I hope never again to assist at such a bine 
dinner as at Rogers's on Frida}^ Bobus Smith and 
old Sharpe * were really too — not a moment's inter- 
mission — not even little John Russell could get in his 
little observations, much less his brother William, 
whom I would willingly have examined as to affairs 
in Portugal, where he has so long resided, and latterly 
as our ambassador. I never was so sick of learning 
as Bobus and the Hatter made me that day. . . . Our 
Earl and Countess [of Sefton] have left about an hour 
ago in a gig, on a visit to the Duke and Duchess of 
Bedford at Woburn, 38 miles off; having two horses 
stationed on the road besides the one they started 
with. Since they went, it has rained cats and dogs, 

* Richard Sharp [1759-1835], commonly known as " Conversation 
Sharp." 



6l8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

and they in a gig without a head ! This, as I say to 
Lady Louisa, is emiui in fine people tired of being at 
the top of the tree, and wanting to see what is at the 
bottom. How the servants must grin ! " 

" 27th. 
". . . Since I last wrote, our Government has 
been in a state of dissolution, and altho' my mind was 
perfectly prepared to lose my Tower, and I should 
have borne the loss better than many a richer man^ 
still it was not a very agreeable state of things to 
write about. Now, however, I believe I may say all 
danger /or the present is over. Stanle}^, Graham and 
the Duke of Richmond have resigned to-day. The 
difficulty has been to make Lord Grey go on with the 
Government, and to a late hour last night I saw 
letters under his own hand saying nothing should 
induce him to do it ; but our Billy has forced him ta 
go on, whether he will or no." 

" Brooks's, May 29tli (King Charles's Restoration 
and Minister Charles's aussi). 

"I dined yesterday at Stanley's, with Johnny 
Russell by his side, and it was all very well. . . . All 
the offices were to be filled to-day. Think of young 
Cole * Secretary of State for the Colonies ! Aber- 
cromby vice Stanley ! Oh dear, oh dear ! . . . I con- 
tinue to dine out daily according to custom. We had 
a great day on Sunday at ' dear Eddard's,' with our 
Chancellor in the character of lover to Mrs. Petre, 
tho' Lady Grey tells me this lover is dead-beat b}? 
Palmerston. Was there ever ? I dine with Fergy 
to-day to meet the Cokes and Abercromby, but not as 
Secretary of State for the Colonies, for all is settled, 
and no mention of young Cole. Auckland first Lord 
of the Admiralty ! ! ! Was there ever ? Spring Rice 
the Colonies ! Ld. Carlisle Privy Seal ; Mulgrave, it 
is probable, the Post Office, Ellice in the Cabinet 
with his present office. I am very glad of this last 
arrangement, because he is the most courageous 
bottle-holder Lord Grey could have. I dine to-morrow 

• The Right Hon. James Abercromby. 



iSsi.'] COMPETITION FOR OFFICE. 619 

at Sefton's with Brougham only; next day at Praise - 
God Barebones Fitzwilliam's." 

" May 30th. 

". . . Very agreeable party at Lady Lichfield's last 
night — Duchess of Kent everything 1 could wish . . . 
and plenty of ' comrogues,' male and female. Well, 
tho' our places are all filled, there is no end of tan- 
trums. Durham is furious at not being in the 
Cabinet. He asked Lord Grey the cause of it, to 
which the latter only replied it was ' quite impossible.' 
Durham aslsed .who it was that objected, but asked in 
vain ; the fact being that Brougham told Lord Grey 
he would not sit in the same Cabinet with Durham, 
and that Grey must make his choice between them. 
Brougham has been to the greatest degree indignant 
with Grey at his appointment of Auckland to the 
Admiralty, the more so as the appointment was made 
at the suit of Lansdowne. So, according to custom, 
the said Vaux has saluted Grey and Lansdowne with 
a literary philippic apiece. However, Sefton says he 
is dulcified since last night. All the old and new set 
were at Anson's last night, and Brougham said to 
me: — 'Auckland's is a neat appointment, is it not ? ' 
twisting about his nose in its happiest forms. To be 
sure, my opinion would be that the hand of death 
was on Lord Grey when he could place on his side in 
this Cabinet such a notorious and so useless a jobber 
as Auckland, at the dictation of such a perfect old 
woman as Lansdowne." 

*' Bury St., June 2nd. 
" . . I dined at Fitzwilliam's * on Saturday with 
the ugliest and most dismal race I ever beheld, and yet 
there is a card from them for a party this day week, 
with ' Dancing' in the corner. They cut the worst 
figure by contrast with the young Lady Milton,t who 
has the merriest and most sweet-tempered face I ever 

* The 5th Earl Fitzwilliam, who, as Viscount Milton, had sat and 
acted with Creevey in the House of Commons. 

t Lady Selina Jenkinson, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Liverpool. 
Lord Milton died in 1835. His widow married in 184.5 Mr. Savile 
F£)ljambe of Osberton, and died in 1883. 



620 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

beheld — or nearly so. A Jenkinson, too, and they are 
not over lively. . . . You can form no notion of the 
obloquy that Auckland's appointment has brought 
upon the Government, or of the terms in which he 
himself is talked of ... I was called out of Brooks's 
yesterday by Wm. Brandling, who said there was an 
acquaintance of mine round the corner, who would be 
glad to see me ; and who should it be but the sweet 
Fanny, looking much more beautiful than ever. We 
had a long walk, and I was quite enchanted with her. 
I dare say her gown had not cost a pound, but in 
looks altogether she beat all London. . . ." 

"6th. 

". . . Well, here is Ld. Carlisle Privy Seal after all^ 
but only as a makeshift, he himself having the greatest 
possible objection to it. When Sefton told me that 
either Radnor or Dacre was to have it, and asked me 
what I thought of the appointment, I said that, as 
far as I was concerned, I would not trust either of 
them with half a crown; not from any distrust of 
their honesty, but from their being a couple of wrong- 
headed fellows you could never be safe with. Wit- 
ness, in Radnor's case, the mess he got into with 
Mrs. Clarke, and his letters to her in the Duke of 
York's case. His having identified himself to the 
extent he has done with Cobbett, and his childish 
consultation with me about bringing him into Par- 
liament, &c., &c. Then Dacre is a conceited prig — a 
generalising, soi-disant German philosopher. Do 
you remember Mrs. Sheridan asking me how he 
spoke, and how Sheridan enjoyed it when I said 
^like a Druid from the top of Snowdon.' Radnor 
would give a more Radical character to the Govern- 
ment, and Dacre a Presbyterian one, having a very 
strong personal resemblance to that community. 
. . . Well; the Government having elected Radnor 
of the two as their Privy Seal, with much importunity 
from Brougham, on Wednesday night he accepted ; 
but yesterday morning brought his stipulation, with- 
out which being acceded to he was off—' an equitable 
adjustment, the duration of Parliament shortened, and 
the repeal of the Corn Laws ! ' What a modest 



I834-] OXFORD DECLINES TALLEYRAND. 621 

estimate a man must have of his own importance to 
prescribe such conditions ! Of course the Govern- 
ment had done with him out of hand, and there was 
not time to sound Dacre before the levee ; but Lord 
Grey told Sefton he was going to offer it to him last 
night. Lord Grey was full of his miseries to Sefton — 
said he had no sleep at night, that he was harass'd to 
death, and was quite aware he shd. die if not shortly 
relieved of the labours and anxieties of office. Of this 
I feel quite sure, that, this season over, he will never 
meet another as Prime Minister. . . . He will go out, 
when he does go, covered with glory, and I see no 
chance of his equal being found in the present circle 
of mankind."* 

"7th. 

". . . Dacre, instead of being Privy Seal, had a 
stroke of apoplexy last night, and fell down. . . ." 

" 9th. 
. ". . . We had all the corps diplomatique last night 
in Downing Street. The Dino and the Lievens are 
gone to Oxford to-day to take their degrees. Wel- 
lington t communicated to old Talleyrand that the 
University would not stand him, and advised him to 
keep away. What a blow upon Talley to be rejected 
by the Monks ! " 

« 13th. 
". . . Your nephew, young William Ord, dares not 
vacate his seat as M.P. for a seat at the Treasury 
Board. The 3'oung gambler Byng is to have it. Ld. 
Conyingham Post Master! Abercromby has the 
Mint, without a salary, and a seat in the Cabinet. 
What accessions to the Government ! " 

"23rd. 
". . . As I arrived first to dinner at Paul 
Methuen's,t and Brougham arrived second, I had him 

* Creevey's forecast was fullilled by Lord Grey's resignation in 
July following. 

t As Chancellor of the University, 
t Created Lord Methuen in 1S38. 



622 . THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Cll. XXV. 

out on a balcony to myself in no time. I stated 
William Roscoe's case as one that he was actually 
bound to attend to — that he professed to be the patron 
of literary merit — that Roscoe's father's fame in that 
department was unrivalled [? unquestioned] — that, 
moreover, he was his friend, and had boasted to me 
of corresponding with him to his dying day — that he 
[Roscoe] had been his principal supporter in our 
Liverpool contest, and in short that, after a most 
meritorious life, he had been reduced by misfortune 
to nearly beggary. Brougham admitted all this, but 
said he had nothing to give worth Wm. Roscoe's 
acceptance. In a short time afterwards he took me 
out on the balcony again, and said : — ' I have been 
thinking Wm. Roscoe's case over, and I have a place 
that would suit him. They will have it that I must 
have an Accountant-General for my new Bankruptcy 
Court, and Wm. Roscoe shall have it. It will be 
;^i200 a year for life.' — Now was there ever? I take 
it for granted he will jib and fling over both William 
and myself ; mais notts verrons ! It will be curious to 
see what invention he will resort to in order to defeat 
this gratuitous offer. 

" We had a most jolly day and ver}^ good company. 
Mrs. Methuen is a sister of Ly. Radnor, and a great 
improvement upon her — I don't mean in morals; I 
know nothing upon that subject, except that the 
parent female stock, who was there in the evening, 
has been somewhat slippery in her da}-." 

" Bury St., July 5th. 

"... I am full of the impression left upon me by 
the sight of that unrivall'd library left by Pepys to 
Magdalene College [Cambridge]. I believe the 
exquisite charms that are to be found in it are, to this 
day, almost unknown to the world. You remember 
Pepys's memoirs (published by Ld. Braybrooke, who 
is Hereditary Visitor and appoints the Master of this 
college), the manuscript of which I had in my hand ; 
but these are almost trash compared to other contents 
of this library. There are 5 folio volumes of prints, 
almost from the origin of printing, being the portraits 
of every royal or public man, woman or child down 



I834-] CREEVEY'S NEW POST. ^23 

to Pepys's own time. I couid scarce tear myself away 
from them, and even these are nothing compared to 
all the other curiosities. . . . Well, you see a new 
quarter has begun,* and our Government is still in, 
and I believe quite safe now until Parliament meets 
again, notwithstanding the spiteful speech of Stanley 
last night. All reasonable men think it most dis- 
graceful of him." 

" July 8th. 

" It is my constant practice to spend two pence a 
day in the hire of a chair, or rather two chairs, one on 
each side of the water in the new and beautiful en- 
closure in St. James's Park. So when the enclosed 
note came after me to-day, with the name * Grey ' in 
the corner and ' Immediate ' on the top, Mrs. Durham, 
who knows all my ways, immediately despatched 
Durham to ransack the said enclosure, and he found 
me as nearly asleep as possible, on the side nearest to 
Downing Street. So there I went ; and Lord Grey, 
in the prettiest manner, told me that Lord Auckland's 
place in Greenwich was vacant, and asked me if it 
would be agreeable to me to have it. He said it was 
not nearly as good as my present place, and that I 
should have some work, as I had to take care of the 
Northumberland estates, &c.t He said he had been 
very desirous that I should have the house, as it was 
a very nice one, with a very nice garden, &c., but that 
Tierney had a right to it in his turn as Commissioner. 

As to the income, it is quite sure to be enough 

for me, and the respectability of the office, and the 
way in which it is given me by Lord Grey's own 
unsolicited good will, gives the most agreeable finish- 
ing touch to my political life. . . . Sefton is to find 
out from Auckland in the Lords to-night the real 
value of the office, and I shall know it at the opera. 

" I never saw Lord Grey apparently more op- 
pressed with care than he was this morning. He said 
he had meant for some time past to offer me this 
office ; but that things were now looking so distracted, 
there was no answering for the continuance of the 

* Creevey means that his quarter's salary is safe. 

t The estates of Greenwich Hospital in Northumberland. 



624 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

Government, and on that account he was for having 
my appointment done out of hand. He complained 
bitterly of Stanley and Graham, as well he might. It 
seems these two wretches left the House last night, 
rather than vote against O'Connell." 

"9th. 

" ' Ah, thoughtless mortals ! ever blind to fate,' — 
' don't count your chickens before they are hatch'd ' — 
various are the accidents between the cup and the lip. 
And now, if you want an illustration of the wisdom 
of all these admonitions, read the enclosed note from 
Grey which I received about 12 o'clock to-day. . . . 
: It now turns out that Althorp sent in his resignation 
to Lord Grey yesterday morning ; and Lord Grey, in 
forwarding it immediately to the King at Windsor, 
accompanied it with his own resignation ; so that he 
was actually out when I had my conversation with him 
yesterday. A messenger from Windsor arrived in 
Downing Street between nine and ten last night with 
the acceptance of the resignations of Lord Grey and 
Althorp ; and either the same messenger or another 
this morning brought a letter from the King to Lord 
Melbourne, begging to see him before the levee 
to-day. . . . Grey and Althorp being out, I defy 
Melbourne or Brougham, or all the Whigs united, to 
patch up any more Whig Governments. ... I have 
not felt any depression yet, and I dare say I never 
shall ; tho' I admit it is very tantalising to have been 
so near a post, and then to be stranded after all. . . ." 

"6.30 p.m. 

"Althorp has been stating in the House of 
Commons that the Cabinet being divided on the 
Coercion Bill was the cause of its being broken up. 
Neat articles they must be to bring in a Bill they were 
not agreed about ! " 

" loth. 

". . . Our poor Earl Grey was so deeply affected 
last night as not to be able to utter for some time, 
and was obliged to sit down to collect himself, 
^hen he did get under weigh, however, he almost 



1834] ANECDOTE ABOUT LORD GREY. 625 

affected others as much as he had been affected him- 
self. All agree that it was the most beautiful speech 
ever delivered by man. Clunch,* too, in the other 
House, distinguished himself greatly for his native 
simplicity and integrity. ... I hope you see Wicked- 
Shifts'st declaration that he has not resigned,, and 
never will. He has not seen the King, I mean— to 
have an audience with him, but he favored him with 
one of his letters yesterday. . . . The salary at Green- 
wich is i;6oo a year, with coals, candles, «&c." 

The hitch in Creevey's appointment to Greenwich 
arose from Lord Auckland's unwillingness to resign. 
This was got over by Brougham, who forced Auck- 
land's hand, thereby clearing the road for Lord Grey's 
old friend. 

" 1 2th August. 

"... I asked Sefton just now how Lord Grey was 
last night — whether he was in the same depressed 
state of mind he had been in the two or three preced- 
ing days. — ' Why,' said Sefton, ' I'll tell you a story of 
him last night, and you may judge. He was talking of 
Taglioni, and, after going over all the dancers of his 
own time by name, and swearing that not one of them 
came within a hundred miles of her, he concluded by 
saying in the most animated strain : — " What would L 
give to dance as well as her ! " This sudden ebullition 
of ambition, in so new a field for a fallen Minister of 
State, produced a very natural convulsion of laughter 
from the few persons present, and from no one more 
than Lady Grey, who, as soon as she recovered, said : 
— " This passion in Lord Grey is not new to me, for 
I well remember that, on the only day he ever was 
tipsy in my presence, when he returned from dining 
with the Prince of Wales, nothing would serve him 
but dressing himself in a red turban and trying to 
dance like Paripol ! " ' . . . 

" Melbourne and our William are going on corre- 
sponding about a Government, and he is to go down 

* Lord Althorp. f Lord Brougham. 



626 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

to the King at Windsor to-morrow at two. . . . The 
King's first proposal to Melbourne was to make a com- 
prehensive administration, and he named the Duke 
of Wellington, Peel and Stanley as necessary parties 
to such a Government. Melbourne wrote his reasons 
at length and in detail why he thought it quite im- 
possible that such a mixture with the late Govern- 
ment could ever take place. He communicated, 
however, the King's proposal to the Duke, Peel and 
Stanley, accompanying each with his own letter. 
Stanley, in his answer, adopts every one of Mel- 
bourne's arguments against such a coalition, pro- 
fesses his unqualified adherence to Lord Grey and 
his principles, and avows his fixed determination 
never to make a part of a Tory Government. The 
Beau and Peel, in their answers, merely state they 
have received Melbourne's letter, and that they don't 
feel themselves commanded by the King to say more. 
Melbourne has written to them again by the King's 
command to ask what they think of his proposal and 
what they mean to do, and the King begs them to 
send their answers thro' Lord Melbourne. This is 
treating the great men (that used to be) rather 
scurvily, I think. ... I dine at Althorp's to-day, and 
to-morrow at Lord Grey's." 

" 14th. 

". . . Melbourne returned from Windsor to-day 
with carte blanche to form a Government. They have 
been at work all morning trying to put the old ship 
afloat again, with some alteration in the crew. . . . 
Althorp certainly remains in." 

. « 1 6th. 
". . . Our poor Taylor is dead.* ... I had really 
a charming day at Holland House yesterday. Dear 
Lord Grey was one of the party, as amiable as ever 
he could be. Lady Holland followed me out when 
I came away to ask me to come again on Sunday 
next, which I promised to do. . . . Melbourne has 

* The Right Hon. Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P., a gentleman of 
small stature and moderate sagacity, but greatly assisted to some 
distinction by his clever and ambitious wife. 



I834-] BROUGHAM BLAMED FOR THE CRISIS. 627 

been kissing hands at the levee to-day as Prime 
Minister, and he is succeeded in the Home Depart- 
ment by Duncannon, wlio goes up to the House of 
Lords. Duncannon is succeeded in the Woods and 
Forests by Hobhouse, with a seat in the Cabinet." 

" 19th. 

". . . Besides Duncannon yesterday at Essex's, 
we had Rogers and Miss Rogers, Lord and Lady 
William Russell and another or two. I have never 
seen a woman that I hate so much as Lady William 
Russell,* without knowing her or ever having ex- 
changed a word with her. There is a pretension, 
presumption and a laying down the law about her 
that are quite insufferable. Then her base ingrati- 
tude to those who formerly fed and cloathed her — 
Fanny Brandling, the P^awkes's and others — sink her 
still lower inmy hatred of her. ..." 

*' August 4tli. 

"... I am all ashamed to say that I dined at 
Brougham's on Saturday, because I am as sure as I 
am of my existence that it was he who drove Lord 
Grey from the Government by his perfidious corre- 
spondence with Lord Wellesley respecting the Co- 
ercion Bill ; and moreover, I am equally certain that 
the driving Lord Grey from the Government has long 
been the object nearest Brougham's heart. How 
then can one dine at Brougham's one day with all 
the rubbish of Lord Grey's Government, with Beelze- 
bub himself in roaring spirits (his servants in silk 
stockings and waiting in gloves), and then dine at 
Lord Grey's yesterday, with him quite knocked down 
and poor Lady Grey actually speechless — both feel- 
ing that he has been the victim of the basest perfidy ? 
Poor Lady Grey ! you must remember how often she 
told me at the formation of the Government, and with 
her uniform horror of Brougham, how completely she 
had got him in a cage by having him in the House 
of Lords. They were both quite sure he could do 

* She was a daughter of the Hon. John Rawdon (brother of the 
1st Marquess of Hastings), and died in 1874. 



628 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

no harm, tho' they well knew his dispositions. . . . 
Where do you think I dine to-day ? With our poet 
Rogers, to meet Anacreon Moore and that melodious 
dicky-bird Miss Stephens.* Can you imagine a 
greater contrast to the two preceding dinners ? . . . 
Miss Stephens has realised ;!^30,ooo by her voice, and 
brought up and supported with it a very large family 
of her kindred. . . . Only think of the Beau's flirt, Mrs. 
Arbuthnot, being dead ! " 

" 7th. 
". . . The dicky-bird failed me at Rogers's — a cold 
in her pipe kept her at home ; so we had only Essex, 
his daughter, Mrs. Ford, Miss Rogers and Tommy 
Moore, of whose melodies I had rather more than 
enough." 

"Stoke, nth. 

". . . Lord Grey and his family were at Windsor 
from Monday last till Wednesday, during which the 
King took him into his own room and had a conver- 
sation of two hours' duration with him, in the course 
of which he was pleased to say that he was actually 
miserable since he had lost his services, and he did 
not see how or when he was to be otherwise. He 
spoke of Ld. Melbourne as liking him, but that he 
had no position either at home or abroad to be com- 
pared with Lord Grey, and that as to the rest of the 
Government, they were nobody. When our Billy said 
Ld. Melbourne was nobody at home or abroad, com- 
pared with Lord Grey, he touched the real thing, 
which these presumptuous puppies will feel before 
they are much older. Palmerston never signed a 
dispatch that had not been seen and altered by Lord 
Grey. Do you suppose he will ever submit to this 
from Melbourne? or, if he did, what does Melbourne 
know of it ? . . . I wish Grey may let to-night pass 
without giving way to any vindictive feelings, which 
I learn from Sefton are gaining upon him hourly. 
Sefton dined at Talleyrand's on Friday with Grey ; 

* Catherine Stephens [1794-1882], vocalist and actress, whose 
marriage with Lord Essex took place a few weeks after Creevey's 
death in 1838. 



1834.] LORD GREY'S OPINION OF BROUGHAM. 629 

and by some mistake about the day, Brougham came 
in late to dinner ; but Lord Grey would not speak to 
him. Having taken leave of the Government in the 
generous way he did in the House of Lords, I can't 
bear his showing any subsequent resentment. . . . 
Brougham already chuckles to Sefton at the influence 
he has got over Melbourne, compared with what he 
had over Grey ; but our Earl [Sefton] is in a mighty 
combustible state upon these matters, and will, to all 
appearance, on some early day burst out upon Beelze- 
bub. He considers Grey as having been basely 
sacrificed by a low-lived crew, not worthy to wipe his 
shoes, and that the Arch-fiend Brougham has been all 
along the mover of this plot for his own base and 
ambitious, selfish purposes." , 



The Countess Grey to Mr. Creevey. 

"Howick, iStli Sept. 
''. . . I have a little changed my mind about this 
same Achitophel.''^ I begin to believe that he really 
did not at that time mean to turn Lord G. out. I 
believe so, because it was not essential to his interest 
to do so, not that I suspect him of any scruples. I 
am inclined to think his own version of it is true. He 
expected to bully Lord G. and to shorten the session. 
He afterwards got into a mess, and it cost him 
nothing to tell a thousand lies. . . . But enough of 
our triumphs and our feuds. Thank God ! as you 
say, Lord G.'s political life has ended gloriously. . . . 
We are now settled here for ever." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord 

" Stoke Farm, 24tli Sept. 

". . . Melbourne came here for dinner on Sunday, 
and was off early in the morning. . . . He told Sefton 
that his real belief was that Brougham never intended 
to force Ld. Grey out of the Government, and I beg: 
your attention to Brougham's defence of himself, as 
made to the innocent Melbourne. — ' It is true/ says 

* Lord Brougham. 



630 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ci-l. XXV. 

Brougham, 'that I did write to Lord Wellesley 
begging him to withdraw his support of those clauses 
in the Coercion Bill which have since been with- 
drawn : it is true that I made Littleton * write to the 
same effect, and my sole intention in this was to 
shorten the session, that I might have time to go to 
the Rhine ' (of course with Mrs. Petre !). Now, from 
the creation of the world, was there ever such a 
defence — be it a lie or be it true ? And then the 
villain says it never entered his imagination that it 
could lead to the result it did. Melbourne states his 
decided opinion that he is mad, and that he will one 
day, in sacrificing everything for his own personal 
whim, be sacrificed himself." 

" Brooks's, 17th Oct. 
". . . Sefton came up to-day on purpose to see 
the smoking remains of the two Houses of Parliament. 
What an event ! I saw the poor old House of 
Commons smoking as I came over Westminster 
Bridge just now. The fire burst out again to-day, 
and burnt furiously for two hours." 

" Stoke Farm, 20th Oct. 

". . . Our party here have been the little Russian 
ambassador ; D'Orsay, the ultra dandy of Paris and 
London, and as ultra a villain as either city can 
produce (you know he married Lord Blessington's 
daughter, a beautiful young woman whom he has 
turned upon the wide world, and he lives openly and 
entirely with her mother. Lady Blessington._ His 
mother, Madame Craufurd, aware of his profligacy, 
has left the best part of her property to her sister, 
Madame de Guiche's, children) ; Lord Tullamore, who 
is justly entitled to the prize as by far the greatest 
bore the world can produce (he married a daughter of 
Lady Charlotte Campbell — a very handsome woman 
and somewhat loose, but as she is dying of a con- 
sumption we will spare her) ; Lord Allen, a penniless 
lord and Irish pensioner, well behaved and not en- 
cumbered with too much principle; Tommy Dun- 
combe, who lost ;^6oo here the two last nights at 

* Created Lord Hathcrton in 1835. 



1834.] A BREEZE WITH BROUGHAM. 63 1 

whist to Lord Sefton, and who, if he was in possession 
of his father's estate to-morrow, would not have a 
surplus of eightpence after paying his debts. Charm- 
ing company we keep, don't we ? Then we have 
Col. Armstrong of old masquerade fame, and now 
equerry, or some such thing, to the King — a very 
good-natured man, and \illegible] than all the others 
put together, which, you'll say, is not saying much 
for him. . . . Lord Fitzroy Somerset * told me that 
Wyatt says he can make Ra^land t habitable for 
;^io,ooo and completely restore it for ;,^5o,ooo." 

" Brooks's, Oct. 22. 
". . . Now for Lord Durham and our Brougham 
and Vaux. You saw the origin of this storm — the 
scratch Durham gave Vaux at Edinburgh, and the kick 
Vaux gave Durham in return from Salisbury. They 
are now got to closer quarters. Vaux has taken the 
field against him in an article in the Edinburgh Review, 
which you ought to read. Durham is attacked by 
name, whilst his assailant is anonymous, tho' known 
to all the world. Durham replies publickly in his own 
name that, if the writer of this article is a member of 
the Government, he is a liar, or words to that effect. 
Now my own deliberate opinion is that Vaux is at last 
caught, and will be ruined ; and very likely the Govern- 
ment will fall with him. His going to Scotland at all 
with the purpose he did — to rob Lord Grey of his 
fame — was an act of insanity, and the disease has 
increased since. . . ." 

« 24th. 
". . . Allow me to mention to you a curious pint 
On Wednesday evening as I was going up to Crocky's 
to dine, little Freeman accosted me in the dark, and 
turned about with me, asking me how I was. I said 
my only complaint was that I could not warm my feet ; 
for love or money. He said that was wrong — the. 
circulation must be defective, &c. 'Of course,' saidi 
he, '3^ou wear woollen stockings.' — 'No,' said I, 'I' 
have never done so in my life.' — 'Then get some 
directl}'-,' said he. So yesterday I bought 6 pair for 

* Created Lord Raglan in 1853. t Raglan Castle. 

2 U 



633 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

morning, and three do. thinner to wear under silk in 
the evening. I am in them now, and such an imme- 
diate change I never witnessed. I have been as warm 
as a toast from the moment I put them on." 

"Brooks's, Oct. 29, 1834. 

". . . At Stolie we had the Russian again,* an 
English merchant from Riga, Younger by name, the 
Due de Richelieu, Tom Buncombe, Col. Armstrong, 
Poodle Byng and myself Whilst at dinner on Sunday 
the two Colonels arrived, Berkeley and Henry,t with 
Charles Grenfell, all from Croxteth. . . . Essex is very 
pathetic about himself, is he not? and very tender 
about the Greys. It is just seven years since he was 
all for Canning's Government, and, like Sefton, all gall 
against Lord Grey. When Grey came into office this 
month four years ago, Essex was one of his earliest 
and most constant toadies, and Lady Grey used to 
treat him like a dog ; so much so that one day when 
I was there, after he had left the room, Lord Grey 
said : — ' Upon my life, Mary, you are too bad in your 
rude manner of treating Essex, and I am sure he sees 
and feels it.' To which our Countess replied : — ' I 
mean that he should see it, because I can never forget 
the shameful conduct of himself and others to you.' — 
*0h,' said Grey, 'that is gone by, Mary, and we must 
forget it.' She used, at that time, to treat Sefton 
exactly in the same way, and for the same reason; 
but lords and M.P.'s have great rewards for perse- 
verance in toadying." 

Earl of Essex to Mr. Crecvey. 

" Belgrave Square, Nov. i, 1834. 

"My dear Creevey, 

" How I envy you your visit to Howick ; but 
alas! the 19th of this month I turn ^6,% and must 

* Princess Lieven. 

t Lord Sefton's sons. 

X According to Burke's Peerage, the 5th Earl of Essex was born 
I3tli November, 1757, which would make him a year older than he 
reckoned. 



I834-] THE ROAD AT ITS PRIME. 633 

remain in my chimney corner. Say all that is most 
kind and affectionate from me to them all. I think the 
Glasgow meeting has ended well : Lambton * has only 
supported his original principles, and Grey's letter, like 
everything he says and does, is sure to be just and 
dignified and kind to Lambton. The operatives, also, 
deserve great credit for their moderation in all their 
sentiments and opinions. Upon the whole I think 
Grey will be satisfied, or at least think no harm has 
been done. Whether there may not be some individuals 
in the country not quite satisfied at all that is passed, 
is neither your business nor mine. Those who make 
their own beds must sleep upon them. I hope you 
and others of your party will do all you can to 
encourage Grey to come up to the meeting. He must 
not remain out at grass, but show his high-mettled 
crest and shining coat to throw the Tories into dismay 
at the very look of him. 

" Yours ever, 

" Essex." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"York, Nov. 2, 1834. 

" Oh ! Barry, my dear,t your mail is the genuine 
mode of travelling for us single people, provided it is 
not that stupid heavy Gloucester one. We were the 
last mail out of Post Office Yard last night — i past 8, 
and such a load of letters, too, and bags as I never 
beheld — nevertheless I was here, 198 miles, by a 
quarter before five this evening, was dressed by six, 
and have just finished my excellent boiled fowl and 
bacon.l ... I am so enamoured of mail travelling that 

* The Earl of Durham, 

t Mr, Creevey usually addressed Miss Ord as Bessy, but some- 
times as Barry. 

X Nimrod writes of this Edinburgh mail as the ne plus ultra of 
road work at any time. " It runs the distance, 400 miles, in a little 
over 40 hours, and we may set our watches by it any point of her 
journey. Stoppages included, this approaches eleven miles in the hour, 
and much the greater part of it by lamplight," The time of the Flying 
Scotsman on the Great Northern Railway for this journey is now 
8 hours and 25 minutes ; and she keeps it. 



634 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

I mean to stay here to-morrow, to play with the 
Minister, to have an early dinner and be off with the 
Edinbro mail of to-morrow about five, and so get to 
Alnwick about six on Tuesday morning. ... I have 
been thinking much of the belligerents Lambton and 
Brougham on my way down, and I think the former 
has completely cut his own throat by his speech at 
the Glasgow dinner, and has given Beelzebub a horse 
to ride which, with his jockeyship, will carry him thro'. 
It is not a year since this hair-brained Lambton claimed 
for himself at his Gateshead dinner the exclusive merit 
of originating the general Reform Bill ; and now, for- 
sooth, he pledges himself to his new allies, the Glasgow 
operatives, and to all other operatives, that he will 
have nothing short of household suffrage, &c., &c., 
which is, of course, a repeal of the present Reform 
Act, of which six months ago he was so proud. 
Beelzebub may sa}^ now, when he is accused of his 
gratuitous declaration against going on too quickly 
with Reform : — ' Why, I knew at the time more than 
you all put together. I knew that a daring measure 
was concocting to destroy all our labours, and put the 
people en masse against the property of the country,, 
and I knew that Lord Durham was to lead this crew. 
With this conviction on my mind, could I do less than 
put the country on its guard against the new-fangled 
Reform ? ' . . . Durham's is a truly daring measure, 
and he has nothing left but to pit the strength of the 
Radicals — himself at their head — against the property 
and good sense of the country ; and I presume (for there 
is no telling till one sees) that he will be beat dead 
hollow." 

" Howick," Nov. 4th. 

"A nicer little dinner and a happier one I never 
had— the ex-Prime Minister and lady, two boys 
(Frederick and Harry), Lady Georgiana and Nummy * 
all the company, with dumb waiters. Only think of 
Downing Street ! . . . Last July two and thirty years 
ago was the first time I ever was in this house. I had 
just then become M.R for the first time, and was here 
early enough from my own election to be present at 

* Creevey himself. 



1S34.] LORD GREY IN RETIREMENT. 635 

Lord Grey's for this county. I well remember going 
with him to the county meeting at Alnwick — a very 
crowded one in the Town Hall. After Lord Grey* 
had proceeded some wa}^ in his address, he said there 
was one subject on which they would naturally be 
anxious to know whether his former opinions had 
undergone any change — namely, Parliamentary Re- 
form. I never shall forget the excitement which this 
question produced in the audience; still less can I 
ever forget that thunder of applause and delight 
when he announced that the result of his experience 
had been to convince him more than ever of the 
indispensable necessity of that great measure. Well 
then, here he is, and this great measure carried : aye, 
and carried exclusively by himself; for without his 
character and talents, no man or men could have 
done, or even attempted it ; nor would any Sovereign 
have trusted any other man to do it. . . . And yet, 
here he is after all — stranded, compelled by the con- 
duct of his own Government to abandon the concern, 
and to retire into private life. As far as he is con- 
cerned — the prolongation of his life and the enjoy- 
ment of the remaining part of it, no one who sees 
him and has known him before, can doubt his good 
fortune in being placed in this situation. . . . No 
continuance in power could add an atom to his fame. 
He stands the only ex-Minister, certainly in this 
country and perhaps in any other, entirely spotless. 
. . . You remember as well as myself the natural 
anxiety and desponding character of his disposition. 
Now that he has closed his political life, that early 
fever has not a trace of it left, and a more perfect 
picture of contentment and even playfulness I def}' 
the world to produce." 

The remainder of this letter deals with Brougham's 
part in recent events, and describes the corre- 
spondence that had passed between him and Lord 
Grey in relation to them. Enough, perhaps too 
much, has been quoted already to show the bitter 

* He was then the Hon. Charles Grey. 



6s6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

feelings against Brougham which prevailed among 
Lord Grey's friends. There are mountains of letters 
on the subject, and it avails little further to reopen 
forgotten sores. 

"9th. 

" Where did I leave off yesterday ? At poor Lord 
and Lady Grey's believing that Brougham, in his 
intrigues unknown to Lord Grey about the Coercion 
Bill, did not mean to get Lord Grey out of office. 
Why, then he must be an idiot, or something much 
worse ! because he must have been quite sure that 
when this plot became known to Lord Grey, the 
latter, as a man of honor, could not remain a moment 
longer with such perfidious scamps. ... I cannot 
help thinking (tho' I may be wrong) that Lord Grey 
is not sorry Durham has taken the real Radical line 
at last, and think it relieves him from any further 
political connection with him, which has been one 
constant source of torment to Lord Grey from 
Lambton's unreasonable and shameful conduct to him. 
. . . Lord Grey told me yesterday that the applica- 
tions made to him for peerages had been over three 
hundredy and for baronetages absolutely endless. 
He says he is in great disgrace with Col. Grey of 
Morrick for not making him one — that his wife came 
to Downing Street in tears absolutely to implore 
this favor from him, but he would not. . . . Lord 
Grey told me that it was one of the first acts of his 
Government to offer Coke a peerage — absolutely an 
earldom — and Coke had chosen for a title 'Castle- 
acre,' an estate purchased by the Lord Chief Justice 
Coke, joining Holkham ; but just before our William 
came to the throne, Coke, at a dinner given him at 
Lynn, had made a most violent speech against George 
the Third, pointing to his picture which was in the 
room, and calling him 'that wretch covered with 
blood' (meaning, of course, from the American and 
French wars), an insufferable speeph, particularly 
of a dead man; so that all the Royal Family were 
in arms about it. The King put it to Lord Grey 
whether, after such an attack upon his father, he 



i834-] OVERTURES TO LORD HOWICK. 637 

could confer this signal mark of favor upon him, and 
Grey thought not." * 

« 1 2th. 

" So Lord Spencer is dead by this time ! Just in 
time to save Althorp from that horrible position in 
the House of Commons which his late folly put him 
into. But what comes of the House of Commons 
itself? Who is to lead that precious assembly? . . . 
Stanley would be the only man if he had only com- 
mon sense and common manners; but I think Spring 
Rice must be the man. . . , Talking of Lady Howick,t 
Lady Grey said : — ' I never liked her, and I do so now 
less than ever. I believe she is clever and has been 
agreeable ; her natural character is to be saucy and 
pert, but with me is artificial and guarded in the 
extreme; curious and inquisitive to the greatest 
degree, and sending to her sister in Yorkshire every- 
thing she picks up ; J which somehow or other comes, 
to me on its return from Yorkshire. Then, if I deny 
having said it in part or in whole, I am told it must 
be so, for " Maria took it down in her journal at the 
time!" which is not very pleasant you know. But. 
Henry is quite devoted to her, and she has supreme 
influence over him.' . . . Just as I was in the midst 
of writing the last sentence. Lord Grey stalked into 
the great library, his spectacles aloft upon his fore- 
head, and I saw at once he was forjazu, so I abandoned, 
my letter to you and joined him. . . . He had received 
a letter from Lord John Russell to-day, and I saw 
in a minute both Holland and Lord John were making 
offers to Lord Howick of a berth in the Government 
(in the Cabinet, of course) thro' Lord Grey ; and then 
we began to talk on that subject in good earnest. I 
gave my own decided opinion that the Government 
could not last ; that I had always thought so before 
the late insanity of Brougham and Durham's scrape, 
even if Lord Spencer had lived ; and that the Govern- 
ment would have broken down in the House of Lords, 

* Mr. Coke was created Earl of Leicester immediately after King 
William's death in 1837. 

t Creevey's old correspondent, Miss Maria Copley. 

X Much as Ci'eevey himself sent everything to his step- daughter. 



6S^ THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

Melbourne, with all his merits, being utterly incapable 
of sustaining it ; but that iiow it would go to the devil 
at once in both Houses. On that account, I would 
nave Lord Howick extremely cautious in taking 
office without more daylight, the design in having 
him being obvious — to pass for having Lord Grey's 
support. Lord Grey was quite with me that the 
Government must go, Althorp being gone, and he 
thinks it could not have weathered the session had 
he remained ; but he has an evident hankering for 
Howick being in office, and evidently has a most 
false estimate of his talents, and of every other 
property belonging to him. ... I will stop here, as 
every day must bring us new speculations as to the 
result of Althorp's political demise." 

«i5th. 
". . . Lord Grey had a letter from Lord John 
Russell yesterday, stating that he had consented to be 
leader of the House of Commons. Can anything be 
more condescending ? Was there ever such luck for 
Lord Grey as being out of office before Althorp was 
off, and Johnny Russell leader? We are both agreed 
that such an arrangement is horrible, if not fatal. 
We both agree that he has an overweening conceit of 
himself, is very obstinate, very pert, and can be very 
rude — charming properties for the leader of such a 
i House of Commons ! . . . Lord Grey says Mulgrave's 
pretensions are beyond all bearing, that he never 
found Grant worth a single farthing, and that Aber- 
cromby is a perfect humbug." 

When King William dismissed Melbourne and his 
colleagues in November, 1834, he laid his commands 
on the Duke of Wellington. The Duke recommended 
that Sir Robert Peel should form a Government ; but 
as Peel was absent in Rome, the Duke consented to 
conduct affairs until his return, declining, however, 
to fill any offices during Peel's absence. Therefore 
until Peel returned on 9th December, the Duke was 
virtually First Lord of the Treasury, Home, Foreign, 



i834.] MELBOURNE'S DISMISSAL. 639 

Colonial, and War Minister; an arrangement which 
gave mighty umbrage to the Opposition. 

« 1 6th. 

" Here's a go for you! The Whigs turned out and 
Wellington sent for. A letter from Lord Melbourne 
to Lord Grey, written at Brighton, announces this 
fact. . . . Now, will this convince Beelzebub that 
honesty is the best policy after all ? It was his perfidy 
to Lord Grey about the Coercion Bill that destroyed 
the Government. . . . Then the conceited puppy 
Johnny Russell, who gave the first blow to the 
Government by disclosing the Cabinet differences 
about the Church, thereby making Stanley and the 
Duke of Richmond resign, that he, having lost Lord 
Grey and Lord Althorp too, should be fool enough to 
think that he could lead the House of Commons ! 
Next to these two benefactors. Brougham and Lord 
John, the Tories are under everlasting obligations to 
Lord Durham and his Glasgow dinner. . . . When I 
was here five and twenty years ago, a King's messenger 
arrived bringing an invitation from Perceval to Lord 
Grey to unite Vv^ith him in making a Government, 
Castlereagh and Canning having quarrelled, fought 
and gone out of office. I presume no messenger will 
come now on a similar errand from Wellington. 
{After dinner) Duke of Bedford mentions a fact Lord 
Grey and I were not aware of; viz. that Peel is in 
Italy. Wellington can form no Government without 
his concurrence." 

"17th. 

". . . Melbourne writes that his conversation with 
the King was a very long one, and that his mind was 
quite made up that the Government, such as it was 
reduced to, could never stand. . . ." 

" igtli. 
" Brougham describes in his letter to Sefton (who 
has arrived here) his interview with the King at the 
Council on Monday. After referring to the letter of 
advice he wrote to the King, and applying a profusion 
of butter to him and his family. Brougham said he 



640 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

hoped he never should be placed in the painful situation 
of acting with any hostility to his Majesty or any part 
of his family ; * but as the leader of a popular [party] 
in this country, he could not conceal from himself that 
he might, to a certain extent, be controU'd by the 
measures of such a party : in short — a regular threat, 
at which Beelzebub says the King seem'd much 
annoy'd (as well he might), very grave, but very civil 
(which I doubt !). Brougham writes : — ' I dined with 
Lyndhurst to-day, and he says he'll be damned if he'll 
be Chancellor without some security. In the mean- 
time he gives up the Exchequer to Scarlett, who is 
Lord Chief Baron and goes to the House of Lords.' " f 

" 20th. 
". . . Brougham continues to write daily to Sefton 
letters of a perfect Bedlamite. He says the excitement 
in London becomes more universal and intense every 
day ; whilst Lord Grey's letters from Melbourne and 
others state that there never was more perfect apathy 
amongst all classes." 

" 22nd. 
". . . Lord Grey and I are of opinion that Welling- 
ton's difficulties appear greater every day. His 
assuming all the offices of State into his own hands, 
without knowing if he can ever fill them, is a most 
offensive and wanton act of power. For instance, he 
has dismissed from their offices in the most insulting 
manner Palmerston and Rice, without naming any 
successors, when, according to established usage, 
they might have held the seals of their offices till such 
successors had been found. ... It is clear that this 
move of the King's was not anticipated by the Tories, 
or Peel would have been on the spot. This vesting, 
or rather assuming, of all the power by one man, and 
him a soldier and with such known opinions, for a 
whole fortnight or perhaps three weeks, is giving 
opportunities for every species of criticism upon such 
conduct. The Whigs might have died a natural 
death, as they shortly would, had they been let alone ; 

* Referring to Queen Adelaide's overt antipathy to the Whigs, 
t As Lord Abinger. 



1834.] CHARACTER OF LORD SEFTON. 641 

but it is quite another thing to have them kick'd out 
of the world by this soldier, and to see him stand 
single-handed on their grave, claiming the whole 
power of the nation as his own." 

" 23rd. 
". . . It seems the offer to Stanley which I 
mentioned has not actually been made yet* Peel is 
to be home on the spot, before a single fixed appoint- 
ment is made. Great homage to him this ! . . . I am 
more and more struck every day with Lord Grey's 
happy appearance, and I can't help making in my own 
mind the contrast between him and Sefton. In my 
estimation, Sefton is by no means inferior to the 
other in natural talents. In conversation he has much 
more fancy and a much greater variety of talent ; and 
had his mind taken the same direction earlier and 
received the same cultivation as the other, he, too, 
would have been a most powerful speaker, tho' not as 
eloquent. But this want of early cultivation now 
ruins him. Lord Grey spends a good part of every 
day with his book, which Sefton, from want of habit, 
can't do, and he is compell'd, therefore, to exist a great 
part of his time upon excitement from play, cookery, 
&c., &c. It would do you good to see me send Lord 
Grey to bed every night at half after eleven o'clock, 
which is half an hour beyond his usual time. This I 
do regularly, and it amuses him much. He looks 
about for his book, calls his dog Viper, and out they 
go, he having been all day as ga^- as possible, and not 
an atom of that ga/l he was subject to in earlier life. 
To be sure, when he read a letter this morning at 
breakfast, stating that the Duke of Gloucester was 
dangerously ill, he did say : — ' Well, if he dies, all I 
can say is, he won't leave a greater fool behind him 
than himself!' But how feeble and gentle this com- 
pared with the energy of earlier days, when he told 

* Stanley was offered office in Peel's cabinet as soon as Peel 
returned from Rome. He declined it, on the ground that, however 
possible he might have found it to serve with Peel, the fact that the 
Duke of Wellington had first received the King's commands " must 
stamp upon the administration about to be formed the impress of 
his name and principles." 



642 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

Dick Wilson that 'nothing in life would give him so 
much pleasure as to see Eldon hanged in his robes.' " 

" 25th. 

". . . Sefton and I had a long conversation with 
Howick * when everybody else was gone to bed. It 
is quite impossible that any one could cut a better 
figure, either for good sense or for good and honorable 
principles. The Rump of his father's Government 
would have applied to him in vain to take office with 
such rubbish, after their treatment of Lord Grey. . . . 
Lord and Lady Frederick FitzClarence went away 
yesterday. . . . He is much the best looking of the 
King's Sons.t . . . The little wife. Lady Augusta,^ 
tho' about the shyest person I ever saw, disclosed 
symptoms both of sense and character. She has seen 
a great deal of the Queen, whom she pronounces to 
be both sensible and good-natured, but that, after 
living fourteen years in England, she has not a single 
English notion. The Queen's fix'd impression is that 
an English revolution is rapidly approaching, and that 
her own fate is to be that of Marie Antoinette, and she 
trusts she shall be able to act her part with more 
courage. She only approves of the Duke of Welling- 
ton, as being the only man to stem the revolutionary 
current, having an old grudge against him and having 
very often abused him in Lady Augusta's presence, 
for having turn'd them out of the Admiralty, for his 
uncourteous manner of doing it,§ and for the dis- 
respectful way in which he always treated the King 
when he was Duke of Clarence. . . . Brougham, in 
his letter to Sefton yesterday, let off a madder prank 
than ever: viz. — that he had written to Lyndhurst 
offering to be Chief Baron /or nothing, by which £7000 
a year would be saved to the nation, he being quite 

* Afterwards 3rd Earl Grey : died 1894. 

t By Mrs. Jordan. The eldest was created Earl of Munster ; the 
remainder received the rank of the sons and daughters of a marquess. 

% Daughter of the 4th Earl of Glasgow, 

§ During Wellington's premiership he had been obliged to take 
grave exception to certain proceedings of the Duke of Clarence in his 
office of Lord High Admiral. First he reprimanded him very sharpl}', 
and finally he removed His Royal Highness from office altogether. 



1834-] VISIT AT HOVVICK. 643 

contented with his pension as ex-Chancellor of ;^5ooo 
a year. . . . Whether this is pure spite to Scarlett, or 
pure, unadulterated insanity I know not ; but I do 
know how so ridiculous a proposition will be treated. 
. . . Lyndhurst is civil and dry in his answer (a copy 
of which Grey has shown me), and says that the Duke 
and himself will call the earliest attention of Peel to 
the proposal when he returns. Ld. Grey did not telj 
me who sent him the copies of these letters, but I take 
for granted it was Lord Holland, and that Brougham' 
had purposely selected Holland as the repository of 
these confidential letters, and under the most positive 
injunctions of secrecy, well knowing it was the best 
chance for publicity ! " 

" Dec. 3. 
"Well, the curtain is about to drop upon my four 
weeks' visit to an ex-Prime Minister. As yesterda3^ 
was a blank day for London letters, Sefton at different 
times expressed his delight at the prospect of this 
morning and the news it would bring — very like an 
indication of ennui, you'll say. . . . Lord Grey only 
smiled and said : — ' I don't expect any news, and 
I don't want any.' At the accustomed hour of ten 
this morning, there stood a pile of letters on his 
plate, making, I should think, his legal number — 
fifteen.* So, having been some time employed in 
opening them and circulating their enclosures, either 
by flinging them or sending them on plates to their 
proper owners, he said at last: — 'It's funny enough, 
of all these letters, there is not one for myself!' 
A very good picture, this, for politicians to study, 
and a very pretty portrait of a retired one. The 
same tranquillity and cheerfulness, amounting almost 
to playfulness, instead of subsiding have rather 
encreased during my stay, and have never been 
interrupted by a single moment of thoughtfulness or 
gloom. He could not have felt more pleasure from 
carrying the Reform Bill, than he does apparently 
when he picks up half-a-crown from me at cribbage. 
A curious stranger would discover no out-of-the-way 

* I.e. the number which, as a peer, he was entitled to receive free 
of postage in one day. 



644 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXV. 

talent in him, no powers of conversation; a clever 
man in discussion, certainly, but with no fancy, and no 
judgment (or very little) in works either of fancy or 
art. A most natural, unaffected, upright man, hos- 
pitable and domestic ; far surpassing any man one 
knows in his noble appearance and beautiful simplicity 
of manners, and equally surpassing all his contem- 
poraries as a splendid publick speaker. Take him 
all in all, I never saw his fellow ; nor can I see any 
imitation of him on the stocks. . . . 

"I never mentioned to you a specimen of Lady 
Grey's moral creed as given me by herself. It 

was just after Lady T had left us; so, being 

alone, she said to me : — ' I like Lady T : she 

is always good-humoured, and she amuses me ; and 
as she never says anything to offend me or those 
belonging to me, I don't feel I have anything to do 
with Mr. Thompson or any other of the lovers which 
she has had. The same with Madame de Dino and 
the Duchess of B ; they are always very good- 
humoured and are very agreeable company ; and as 
they never say anything to offend me, I have nothing 
to do with all the different lovers they are said to have 
had. I take no credit to myself for being different 
from them : mine is a very lucky case. Had I, in the 
accident of marriages, been married to a man for whom 
I found I had no respect, I might have done like them, 
for what I know, I consider mine as a case of luck.' 

" Droll, wasn't it ? " 

"Tower, Dec. 20. 

". . . Lyndhurst said to some one yesterday: — 
* D'ye know where Peel's letter was concocted ? ' — 
'No,' said the other. — 'At Brooks's!' said Lynd- 
hurst. What a wag. I should say it would do for 
the present, and until the Irish Church comes upon the 
stage, or any other similar puzzler. I don't feel any 
wish to disturb such a government as long as they 
keep to such a text. How Goulburn, KnatchbuU, &e., 
are to swallow such Liberalism I neither know nor 
care. However, our people are all up in arms against 
what they call the humbug of Jenny." * 

* Peel. 



1834.] AT HOLLAND HOUSE AGAIN. 645 

"Greenwich Hospital, Dec. 23rd. 

"Our party at dinner on Sunday at Lord Holland's 
was the Duchess of Bedford, Duke of Devonshire, 
Mulgrave, B. Thompson, Bickersteth and some one 
else I forget. I never was acquainted with the 
Duchess of Bedford, and since I delivered her of her 
London Bedford House in 1808, have always been 
glad not to come in her way. However, on Sunday 
she began before dinner, . . . and when there was an 
opening after dinner she said — 'Well, tho' I have 
never had a house in London fit to live in since that 
disappointment, I quite forgive you ; and I hope you 
will come and see me at Woburn at any time you like. 
... I dine at the Hollands again on Xmas day— 
again to meet that lively man, the Duke of Devon- 
shire ! But we shall have no want of vivacity on that 
jolly day, as the Duke of Norfolk dines there likewise. 
... I had two conversations yesterday, each with a 
Hume — the first, 'Joe' — the second, Wellington's 
doctor whom you will remember. The first was 
quite positive that Peel could not number 200 sup- 
porters. My other friend, to my surprise, turned 
about with me, and expressed to me his fixed con- 
viction that every attempt of the Duke and Peel to 
procure a favorable Plouse of Commons would fail." 



( 646 ) 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

1835-1836 

In the remaining years of Creevey's life he continued 
comfortably withdrawn from active political strife, 
though he continued to take a keen interest in all that 
was passing. He lived chiefly with the Seftons ; but, 
despite his deafness, continued in great request as a 
diner-out. Repeated attacks of influenza, treated by 
cupping, which he mentions as a notable improvement 
upon the old lancet bleeding, made him subject to long 
periods of feebleness ; but his pen continued almost 
as busy as ever. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Brooks's, April 29th, 1835. 

". . . We have an affair going on betw^een Alvanley 
and O'Connell. Alvanley challenged him directly 
when he called him a 'bloated buffoon.' Damer 
Dawson is Alvanley's bottle-holder, and as Dan had 
returned no answer to the demand upon him yester- 
day, which was supposed ample time, Dawson fired a 
second shot into him. / think Alvanley quite wrong 
in this, but Sefton is quite of a contrary opinion." 

" May 5th. 

". . . About this nonsense of Alvanley's, I consider 
every part of Alvanley's conduct as farlty. His first 
movement against O'Connell was political; it was to 



1S35-36.] CREEVEY AS AN ONLOOKER. 647 

create disunion between O'Connell and his tail and 
the Whigs. Then I knozv that this arose from spite, 
Alvanley having been lately refused a place in the 
Household which he asked for. Then the publicity 
he has given to his challenge of O'Connell is against 
all rule. However, he has been at last accommodated 
by one of the O'Connell family, who had 3 shots at 
him last night in a duel, and no harm done to either 
party. . . . Alas, alas, the Widow's Mite (you know 
that is the name that has been given by some wag to 
johnny Russell)* has been beaten black and blue in 
Devonshire. . . . 

"As I was walking just now, according to my 
constant custom, in the enclosure in St. James's Park, 
who should I meet but Bessy Holyoake, alias Good- 
rick, all alone, having dismissed her footman at the 
gate, and we had a charming walk quite round the 
whole, in the course of which we met, first Rogers and 
Mrs. Norton arm in arm ; then Goodrick, the Duke of 
Richmond and Graham, ditto ; then Lord Durham and 
his 3 children." 

"Brooks's, 1 6th. 

". . . After our signal triumph in Yorkshire, which 
was quite invaluable if our blockheads would have 
left it alone, they must make that marplot Littleton a 
peer,t and so open Staffordshire, as if the puppy had 
not done mischief enough last year when, by his 
intrigues with O'Connell, he forced Lord Grey out 
of the Government. Three days ago in my favorite 
resort in St. James's Park I met Brougham walking. 
. . . He joined me — my first time of seeing him since 
the explosion; and a more unsatisfactory, rambling 
discourse I never had dealt out to me — very, very long 
and, as far as he dared, abusing everybody. I was 
heartily glad when this mass of insincere jaw came 
to a close by his going to the House of Lords, Figure 
to yourself at this moment, O'Connell and myself 
seated at the same table writing, very near each other, 
and no one else in the room, and yet no intercourse 
between us, tho' formerly we always spoke. This is 

* Lord John Russell, who was of very diminutive stature, had just 
married the widow of the 2nd Lord Ribblesdale. 
t Lord Hatherton. 

2 X 



648 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI. 

no matter of choice with me, nor do I like it, but after 
his abuse of Lord Grey, I made up my mind never to 
speak to him again." 

*' May 20t]i. 

", . . Lord Essex told me on Sunday morning here 
that Lady Grey was very anxious I should not fail her 
that day, as she relied upon my protection of her 
against Sir Joseph Copley, of whom she was horribly 
afraid. However, when I arrived there I found there 
was not much danger of her being overpowered by 
Copley, It is true he was there, as were his daughters 
* Coppy ' and Lady Howick ; * but there were likewise 
Lord and Lady Morley, Lord and Lady Granville and 
Col. Carradock (as the puppy calls himself instead of 
Cradock), with whiskers quite enough to deter Cop- 
ley from any personal attack on Lady Grey, besides 
her own private body-guard of Howick, Charles 
and Frederic, with Ladies Elizabeth and Georgiana. 
'Coppy' fell to my lot, and I did all I could to be 
agreeable to her at dinner ; but both she and Maria, 
ifrom the manner in which they shook hands with me 
at first, gave me a kind of formal notice not to presume 
upon it or be too familiar with them. I dare say, in 
fact, that, knowing my intimacy with the Greys, and 
feeling their own artificial situation in the same 
quarter, they consider me rather an enemy. To be 
sure, they had no great reason to be set up with the 
attentions of either my lord or my lady. They know 
that they both think Ly. Howick infernally imperti- 
nent, as most assuredly she is.f 

" In the evening we had a truly select addition to 
our dinner party, consisting of the Dow. Duchess of 
Sutherland, who, as Lady Elizabeth Bulteel and I 
agreed, has all the appearance of a wicked old 
woman. Her son and the young Duchess too — a 
daughter of Lord Carlisle's, and a cousin, pretty 
enough and amiable and good, I dare say, but with 
such nonsensical ruffs and lappets and tippets about 

* Sir Joseph's daughter Maria had been married to Lord Howick 
in 1832. 

t Lady Howick had been brought up in a family of Tories, which 
no doubt affected Creevey's opinion of her, though they had been the, 
best of friends before her marriage. 



1835-36.] LADY GREY AT HOME. 649 

her neck and throat that, coupled with her brother 
Morpeth's constant grin, gives you a strong suspicion 
of her being a Cousin Betty. 

" My ears were much gratified by hearing the names 
•Lord and Lady John Russell' announced; and in 
came the little things, as merry looking as they well 
could be, but really much more calculated, from their 
size, to show off on a chimney-piece than to mix and 
be trod upon in company. To think of her having had 
four children * is really beyond ! when she might pass 
for 14 or 15 with anybody. Everybody praises her 
vivacity, agreeableness and good nature very much, 
so it is all very well. . . . We had rather an interest- 
ing sprinkling of foreigners too — first and foremost 
my own well-beloved and honest Alava, then the 
ingenuous Pozzo [di Borgo], with his niece Madame 
Pozzo — a very pretty, nice, merry looking young 
woman. ... It was a great treat to me, too, to see 
at our party for the first time in my life Sebastiani, 
with his wife, sister to Lady Tankerville.f . . . Let 
me not omit to mention that this corps diplomatique 
was closed by the arrival of our Mandeville,| who now 
turns his eyes from me as if he loathed me, probably 
attributing Lord Grey's altered manner to him to my 
having shown him up as he deserves. I beg Cupid' 
Palmerston's pardon ! he, too, was there, as also was. 
Lady Cowper, if you come to that. . . . Well, Barry, 
as for our Buckingham Palace yesterday — never was 
there such a specimen of wicked, vulgar profusion. It 
has cost a million of money, and there is not a fault 
that has not been committed in it. You may be sure 
there are rooms enough, and large enough, for the 
money ; but for staircases, passages, &c., I observed 
that instead of being called Buckingham Palace, it 
should be the ' Brunswick Hotel.' The costly orna- 
ments of the state rooms exceed all belief in their bad 
taste and every species of infirmity. Raspberry- 
coloured pillars without end, that quite turn you sick 
to look at ; but the Queen's paper for her own apart- 
ments far exceed everything else in their ugliness and 

* By her first husband, Lord Ribblesdale. 
t A daughter of Antoine, Due de Grammont. 
% Afterwards 6th Duke of Manchester. 



650 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI. 

vulgarity. . . . The marble single arch in front of the 
Palace cost ;/;"ioo,ooo* and the gateway in Piccadilly f 
cost ;^40,ooo. Can one be surprised at people becoming 
Radical with such specimens of royal prodigality before 
their eyes? to say nothing of the characters of such 
royalties themselves." 

" Stoke, August 23. 

". . . There was a prodigious to-do at the Castle 
here the day before yesterday, it being Billy's 
seventieth birthday — a dinner to 150 and tea party to 
as many more ; in short, to all the nibberhood, always 
excepting poor Stoke, the residence of Maria Craven, 
Billy's first love.| Oh perfidious Billy! but as Sefton 
told me, this omission was quite a matter of course, 
the family not having written their names at the 
Castle this year. . . . You will be glad to know that 
amongst the visitors at the Castle, the Lord Mayor 
had the honor to be one, and not only to dine, but 
to stay all night. This said Lord Mayor, Win- 
chester, is a stationer; and having been employed 
by a Tory Government for supply of the Treasury, 
was formally dismissed by the same Government, 
by regular Treasury minute, for cheating — that was 
all. Another favored guest, both for bed and board, 
was Walter, M.P. for Berkshire, formerly proprietor 
and editor of the Times newspaper. 



" 17, St. James St., 29 January, 1836. 

". . . There never was such a coup as this Muni- 
cipal Reform Bill has turned out to be. It marshals 
all the middle classes in all the towns of England in 
the ranks of Reform ; aye, and gives them monstrous 
power too. I consider it a much greater blow to 
Toryism than the Reform Bill itself; tho' I admit 
it could never have been effected without the latter 
passing first. It is a curious thing to be obliged to 
admit, but it is perfectly true, that Melbourne and 

• Now the Marble Arch in Hyde Park. 
t Now at the entrance to Constitution Hill. 
X The Countess of Sefton. Seep. 554. 



1835-36.] "BEAR" ELLICE. 65 1 

the leavings of Lord Grey's Government are much 
stronger than Lord Grey's Government was when 
it was at its best. Altho', as old Talleyrand observed, 
Melbourne may be trop camaradc for a Prime Minister 
in some things, yet it is this very familiar, unguarded 
manner, when it is backed by perfect integrity and 
quite sufficient talent, that makes him perfectly in- 
valuable and invulnerable." 

"Brooks's, Feb. 15th. 

". . . The great object of my curiosity at present 
is to see and ^et hold of our Ellice,* who is just fresh 
from Paris, after a residence of some time there. He 
has had two very distinguished playfellows there, 
with whom he has almost entirely lived — the first, 
Madame Lieven — the other, no less than Philippe, 
who could scarcely bear to have him out of his si^ht. 
Madame Lieven's attachment to him was intelligible 
enough. She knows her man, and would be quite 
sure to know everything that he knows of Lord 
Durham and his mission — every secret (if they have 
any) of the present Government, and every opinion 
entertained by Lord Grey. What is the bond of 
union between the Bear f and the King of the fVench 
I am yet to learn. . . . Ellice is very vain (and who is 
not ?) ; he is a sieve, and so much the more agreeable 
for those who squeeze him. . . . What say you to our 
own Stanley? was there ever such a case of suicide ? 
I really think if I saw him in the street I should try 
to avoid him to save his blushes ; yet perhaps such 
things are unknown to him." 

" March 19th. 

"... I never dined with Lady Holland after all, 
but sent an excuse on account of my gout. I really 
can't stand the artificial bother and crowded table of 
her house. I admit that no one can sail thro' such 
difficulties better than myself; but still, her presump- 
tion is not to be endured. How different from the 
affable demeanour of Marianne Abercromby with 
whom and Mr. Speaker I am to have the honor of 

* The Right Hon. Edward Ellice, M.P. f EUice. 



652 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI. 

dining this day ; * and our Duke Barney f is to take 
me there." 

" 22nd. 

". . . The town at present is kept in perpetual 
motion by the Duchess of Kent, everybody going to 
her fetes at Kensington to see the young King of 
Portugal, her nephew. Lady Louisa [Molyneux] tells 
me that he is an innocent looking lad of 20, and that 
he never seems happy but when talking to his cousin 
Victoria, and that then they seem both supremely 
so. What wd. I give to hear of their elopement in 
a cab ! . . . 1 declare I have not read anything for 
ages that has interested me so much as the Duke of 
Wellington's examination and evidence before the 
Flogging Commission in the Times of to-day. It is 
the image of him in his best and most natural state, 
and very entertaining and instructive." 

"28th. 

". . . My sister used to reproach me for letting so 
many of my companions ' get before me ' in life, and 
used to instance Scarlett being a lord and Western 
too ; but her best case would have been Abercromby, 
who was a suitor to me thirty years ago for any office 
that would secure him. food ; and here he is — Speaker 
of the House of Commons ! entertaining me in one of 
the finest houses in London, and with the finest com- 
pany. We had a great turn out at dinner there on 
Saturday — the Dukes of Norfolk and Devonshire, 
Lord and Lady Seymour, Lord and Lady Howick, the 
young Bear and Mrs. Ellice, Charles Fox and Lady 
Mary, Lords Palmerston, Strafford and Ebrington, 
&c., &c." 

" Stoke, April 8. 

". . . Our family here [the Seftons] was put rather 
in a fuss yesterday by receiving a letter from Lady 
Craven, informing Lady Sefton officially and at some 
length that her daughter's intended marriage with 

* The Right Hon. James Abercromby was Speaker from 1835 to 

1839. 

t The Duke of Norfolk. 



1835-36.] ACTION AGAINST LORD MELBOURNE. 653 

Tom Brand * was broken off by the young lady her- 
self, who found out at last (for the wedding day was 
very near) that she really could not like him enough 
to marry him. Her principal objection against him 
is that he never opens his mouth and that he pro- 
scribes any connection with a book. A lively, 
interesting companion, it must be admitted.f Mrs. 
Norton has quitted her husband, upon a quarrel 
about a man whose name I forget. She is not, 
however, gone off with this man, but gone to the 
Sheridans." 

"Jermyn St., April 23. 

"... I dined with Madagascar } at Holland House, 
a small party, and for once, to my delight, plenty of 
elbow-room. . . . Whilst Holland House ca7i be as 
agreeable a house as any I know, it is quite as much 
at other times distinguished for iivaddle, and so it was 
on this occasion." 

"Brooks's, May 13th. 

". . . Melbourne has been very ill, but is better, 
and will do. Young, his secretary, told me that he 
had been terribly annoyed by the Norton concern. 
The insanity of men writing letters in such cases is to 
me incomprehensible. She has plenty of Melbourne's 
and others, but according to what is considered the 
best authority, the Solicitor General of the Tories — 
Follett — has saved Melbourne, tho' employed against 
him. Follett is said to have asked Norton if it was 
true that he had ever walked with Mrs, Norton to 
Lord Melbourne's house, and then left her there. 
Upon Norton's saying that was so, Follett told him 
there was an end of his action. § 

"The jaw about this case is now succeeded by the 
breaking off of the marriage between Ld. Villiers and 

* Afterwards 22nd Lord Dacre. 

t In 1840 Lady Louisa Craven married Sir G. F. Johnstone, Bart., 
and after his death she married Alexander Oswald of Auchencruive in 

1844. 

X Lady Holland. 

§ The jury, without leaving the box, pronounced a verdict 
acquitting Lord Melbourne. 



654 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI. 

Lady — Herbert, Lady Pembroke's daughter. Lady 
Pembroke's case against Lady Jersey is merely a 
charge of an attempt to get her daughter to sign a 
paper doing herself out of ;^20,ooo — her whole fortune 
— without any one's knowledge." 

" 28th. 

". . . Yesterday I dined at Holland House with 
my old and tried friend the Speaker, and Marianne 
[Hon. Mrs. Abercromby] into the bargain. Such a 
fright I never in my life beheld, in a dress far sur- 
passing any female crossing-sweeper on May Day. I 
arrived just as they had sat down to dinner, with as 
little room to turn myself in as ever fell to any man's 
lot, and yet I was called to both by Lord and Lady 
Holland to leave room for a very distinguished 
American gentleman who was expected ; but 1 would 
not hear of such a thing, and this led to a good deal of 
fun. The party consisted, besides the Abercrombys, 
of Bob Adair, Lord de Ros, the Attorney General and 
his wife, the peeress Scarlett's eldest daughter (1 
forget her title).* I found her a very nice agreeable 
companion, apparently very amiable, and not the 
least set up with either her father's peerage or her 
own. Dr. Lushington and Fonblanque, a son of old 
Fonblanque, and writer of one of the cleverest Sun- 
day papers, were the others. I took to Fonblanque 
much. The distinguished American arrived a quarter 
after eight, the dinner hour having been half-past six ; 
but he brought his card of invitation with him to 
shew he was right. . . ." 

" Stoke Farm, Sept. 6th. 

" I came here on Friday ; visitors — Charles 
Greville, Lords Charleville and Allen, Standish, 
Townley, Rogers and C. Grenfell. Townley still 
dumb ! t Was there ever ? . . . Sefton asked me if I 

* Lady Abinger's eldest daughter, wife of Sir John Campbell, had 
just been created Baroness Stratheden, and her husband was sub- 
sequently created Baron Campbell in 1841. 

t Mr. Townley had been courting Lady Caroline Molyneux, but 
delayed coming to the point. In effect, he married her in the 
November following. 



1835-36-] CASSIOBURY. 655 

had heard of , I mean, his cheating at cards, and 

upon my saying yes, he said it was all quite true, and 
that his practice had been so long known to his 
friends that they had remonstrated against his pur- 
suing such a course, for fear of detection ; but poor, 

dear, insinuating could not resist, and it has 

fallen to the lot of George Payne to detect him 
publickly. The club is to be dissolved in order to get 

rid of him. is gone abroad, and Sefton has a 

letter from him — the most amusing, wittiest letter 
about all he has seen ! . . ." 

" Brooks's, Sept. 16. 

"Sad work, ladies, sad work! Not a frank to be 
had for love or money, so don't cry if I don't catch 
an M.P. before the post goes out* I returned from 
Cashiobury [Lord Essex's] on Wednesday, and my 
visit was all very well. The Hollands came on 
Saturday, with Rogers, Melbourne on Sunday, and 
Glenelg on Tuesday. We all left on Wednesday — I 
in Glenelg's carriage. I had the offer of Rogers's 
carriage all to myself; but I declined attending the 
funeral ; by which I mean Lady Holland's procession. 
She moves in her own coach and four horses — her 
stipulated pace being four miles an hour, to avoid 
jolting! She makes Rogers go in her coach with 
Holland and herself, all the windows up; then 
Rogers's chariot follows empty, then my lady's chaise 
and pair of posters, containing her maid, her rubber^ 
page, footmen, &c. . . . Essex is a man of very few 
words for compliments; but I took it as a real 
civility when he said : — * I ordered for you, Creevey, 
the room that poor George Tierney was so fond of, 
and always had.' Certainl}'-, a more perfect apart- 
ment I never had. Essex and Lady Holland were 
growling at one another all the time, but she was 
always the aggressor. Melbourne and Holland were 
all good nature and gaiety. The only drawback to 
my amusement was owing to my great folly in walk- 
ing on Monday to see the Birmingham railroad f now 

* He did catch one, and the letter is franked by Mr. Kemeys-Tynte. 
t Opened in 1837: now part of the London and North Western 
system. 



656 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI. 

making, being about four miles there and back, which 
has made me dead lame. ... I think our Madagascar 
is evidently failing : she looks wretchedly, and there 
is an evident languor upon her that even victuals and 
liquor don't remove. She came one day and sat close 
beside me in the library ; and when she had begun to 
talk to me, a little, tidy old woman came and went 
down on her marrow-bones, and begun to put her 
hands up her petticoats. So of course I was for 
backing off de suite; but she said: — 'Don't go, 
Creevey ; it is only my rubber, and she won't disturb 



" Brooks's, 24th. 

"... I dine at Crocky's daily, where I have got 
the dinner down to 85. 6d. — tout compris; was I to dine 
here, it would certainly be 2, fund. , . . My eye! what 
a man Lord Fitzallen is, if you please — ^just intro- 
duced — about 7 feet high, as red as a turkey-cock and 
covered with bushes of black hair in mustachios and 
whiskers. Thank God I don't dine with him; he is 
really quite disagreeable to look at." 

" 30th. 

"... I dined at Poodle Byng's on Monday — the 
Honble. Mrs. Byng having been lady's maid to the 
Poodle's mother. You know I have the greatest 
aversion to playing at company with such kind of 
tits; but as Charles Greville, Cullen Smith and 
Luttrell, and two or three more of your men upon 
town took no objection, it was not for me to find 
fault." 

" Brooks's, Oct. 4tli. 

". . . When I was at Stoke I fell in love with 
Wellington's Peninsular dispatches, published by 
Gurwood ; but as my supply from that library is now 
cut off, and the book itself too dear to buy, I am 
living upon Napier's Peninsular War, which has been 
given me by Lord Allen, because he hates it so much. 
. . . Napier is a clever man, and has taken great pains 
with his subject ; but he undertakes too much in his 
criticism upon all the French generals in Spain, and 



'835-36.] DEATH OF CHARLES X. 657 

all their acts. The Beau,* the real official and efficient 
observer of all, pretends to no such universal insight 
into the tactics of his enemy as is claimed by this 
subaltern in his own camp.f . . ." 

«8tli. 
"... I shall certainly take your advice and sub- 
scribe to a circulating library ; but I have enough on 
my hands at present with Napier, who rises in my 
estimation every page I read of him. His defence of 
poor Moore is perfect. ... I think when I next see 
the portrait of that villain Frere hung up at Holland 
House, I shall not be able to contain myself." 

" Nov. 17th. 
". . . Sefton said before dinner yesterday : — ' So 
Charles Dix % is dead ! ' and scarce an observation 
was made from any quarter upon this event. The 
first year you and I, Barry, were at Knowsley, I saw 
the said Charles Dix with his son and Berri and their 
respective gentlemen, going in two coaches and four 
to Croxteth. They did this for years. When the 
restoration in France took place, there was nothing 
that Charles Dix and his family did not do to show 
their gratitude to the Seftons for past kindness. . . . 
I was present in Arlington Street when the French 
Ambassador brought, by command of Charles Dix, as 
a present to Lady Sefton, his picture, with the prettiest 
note possible, saying it was great vanity in so old a 
man for him to send his picture to a lady, but hoping 
she would receive it as an acknowledgment of all the 
kindness he had received from her. When the last 
Revolution took place in 1830, and Charles Dix came 
here, Sefton shewed me a letter from Sir Arthur 
Paget (who had likewise been a personal friend of 
Charles Dix), saying he considered it his duty to go 
and pay his respects to him, and asking Sefton to 

* The Duke of Wellington. 

t There is some justice in this criticism : at the same time it must 
be remembered that Wellington's despatches were contemporaneous ; 
whereas Napier was writing years afterwards, and with knowledge 
gained from the enemy's secret correspondence. 

X King of France. 



658 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI. 

accompany him. Sefton declined, and never did see 
him. I think I can safely say I would not have acted 
thus for all Sefton's propert}^. . . . After all, Sefton 
will die an unhappy man, with all the means the 
world can give him to make himself, and all around 
him, happy." 

S. Marjoribanks, M.P. for Hythe, to Mr. Creevey. 

" I am just now moving my quarters in London, 
and I find that I have about 3 dozen of the old East 
India Sherry more than my bin will hold. Will you 
oblige me by accepting it ? 

"S. Marjoribanks." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Nov. 24th. 

". . . The Times newspaper had a statement from 

's camp proclaiming his innocence. This is 

replied to by another statement in the Chronicle of 
to-day — evidently an official article from the camp of 

Payne and Co., charging distinctly as a cheat, 

as no doubt he is. Even his friend the Pet* gives him 
up and refuses to see him. He has, it is true, some 
little cause of resentment against him, being sure, 

as he tells me, that and Montrond cheated him 

out of ;^6ooo the Xmas I met them at Croxteth." 

* Lord Sefton. 



( 659 ) 



CHAPTER XXVII., and Last. 

1837-1838. 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Jermyn St., Jany. I4tli, 1837. 

"... I am caught at last by that infernal influenza. 
It's the most marvellous concern I ever heard of — 
nothing but common snivelling and wholesome 
coughing, and yet producing such depression and in- 
capacity as really to be beyond. No appetite, of 
course." 

" 20th 

". . . What a figure Peel makes with his Scotch 
sentiment, his scenery, his young shepherd who was 
so instructive to hear! The poor vSpinning Jenny 
has acquired great power both of thinking and speak- 
ing, but his works of fancy betray his origin. They 
are as like his father as ever they can be. I heard the 
father once say : — ' I say, Mr. Speaker, Britannia is 
seated on a rock! ' Here they are, you see, both alike 
in their clumsy capers after sentiment. Only think of 
old Peel and Sheridan ! and yet oh dear, oh dear ! the 
difference of their deaths. I should like to have heard 
old Sherry's comments upon young Peel's speeches. 
... I am happy to say that the mischievous crew — 
Sir Wm. Molesworth, Roebuck, my Napier and Co. — 
are becoming quite blown upon by their brother 
Radicals, which will be a monstrous relief to the 
Government in the approaching session. . . ." 

"Brooks's, March nth. 
"... I dined on Sunday at Sefton's to meet 
Brougham, with Denman, Radnor and others. . . . 



66o THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVI I. 

Just as we were going away, Brougham took me aside, 
and, to my great surprise, asked me if I would dine 
with him alone as yesterday at 6 o'clock, and that he 
would show me some most curious correspondence of 
George the third. I, of course, expected to be put off 
every day, but no such thing. . . . After dinner. 
Brougham read the correspondence to me till between 
II and 12 o'clock and I have much more to come. It 
consisted of letters from George the 3rd to Lord 
North as his minister, during the whole of his long 
administration.* Talk of the Creevey papers, my dear ! 
would that they contained these royal letters ! I have 
never seen anything approaching them in interest — 
the cleverness of the writer, even in his siyle — his 
tyranny — his insight into everything — his criticism 
upon every publick parliamentary man — his hatred of 
Lord Chatham and Fox, and all such rebellious 
subjects — his revenge ; but at the same time and 
throughout, his most consistent and even touching 
affection for Lord North. . . . You would be amused 
to see the effect produced upon the Whig Govern- 
ment by this conduct of Brougham to myself. . . . 
[They are] most desirous for me to make some kind 
of of)ening between them and Brougham, for there is 
no kind of communication between them, and they 
feel it most unpleasant to see him every night in the 
House of Lords, and never to feel sure whether he 
will pounce upon them or not. Oh dear ! to think of 
the prudent Mr. Thomas being called in to settle such 
matters ! " 

" 1 8th. 
". . . Would you believe it that when Brougham 
was Chancellor he would press the correspondence 
between George the 3rd and Lord North upon our 
William, . . . his object being that the King might 
see what a constant and valuable support his father 
gave to his Ministers, and so induce King William to 
do the same ; but all the observation he could get from 
his master was this : — * George the 3rd, my lord, was 
a party man, which I am not in the least.'" 

* Correspondence of George III. with Lord North from 1768 to 
1783, edited by W. Bodham Donne, 1867, 



1S37-38.] DEATH OF MRS. FITZHERBERT. 661 

" Brooks's, April 21. 

"As to poor Mrs. Fitzherbert, I wish, as you say, 
you had some little picture of her. She was the best- 
hearted and most discreet human being that ever was, 
to be without a particle of talent. Finding she was in 
town before Xmas, and dining most days at home with 
Lady Aldborough, Lady Radnor and others, I made 
an attempt to be taken into the same party, but 
entirely failed. Mrs. F. said she had known me 
formerly, but that I had long ceased to call upon her. 
My offence I always felt and knew to be my foul 
language about Prinney when he sought to destroy 
his wife. Mrs. F. might think that my former inter- 
course with him should have restrained this vitupera- 
tion, and that even on her account I shd. have stopt 
my mouth. Poor thing, I dare say she was right ; but 
it was more than flesh and blood could resist not to 
have a blow at such a villain in ' the perpetration 
of such an act of infamy and oppression. She 
has left her house in town and her jewels to Mrs, 
Darner ; her house at Brighton and everything else 
to Mrs. Jerningham. I remember her telling me 
a great many years ago that she had been offered 
;^20,ooo for her town house. She can have left no 
other property. About a year ago, she deposited all 
her letters and papers of every description in the 
hands of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Albemarle, 
for the purpose of being destroyed by them, as I am 
told they were ; but I shall ask Albemarle for an 
account of the transaction. She formerly expressed 
to me great anxiety to have her correspondence 
published after her death — talked of having two copies 
made of it for fear of being betrayed by her executors, 
and at one time I almost thought she would have 
given me one of such copies. . . . Now then, attend 
to Albemarle's account just given to me by him as to 
Mrs. Fitzherbert's letters. She gave these letters to 
Lord Albemarle about fifteen years ago, to be kept by 
him till further directions ; her wish being that after 
her death they might be published. Upon the death 
of the late King,* the Duke of Wellington, as his 

* Georsre IV. 



662 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

executor, became possessed of all Mrs. Fitzherbert's 
letters, which, singularly enough, had been preserved 
with equal care by Prinney. Mrs. Fitzherbert applied 
to the Duke to have her letters restored to her ; but 
he refused, unless she consented to restore the King's 
letters likewise. This led to a negociation between 
the Duke and Albemarle; and finally it was agreed 
between them, with Mrs. Fitzherbert's concurrence, 
that they should all be burnt, and so they were, at 
Mrs. Fitzherbert's own house, in the presence of her- 
self, the Duke and Albemarle. Oh dear, oh dear! 
that I could not have seen them. They begun in 
1785 and lasted to 1806 — one and twenty years. The 
last year — 1806— was when the young man fell in love 
with Lady Hertford, and used to cry, as 1 have often 
seen him do, in Mrs. Fitzherbert's presence. So it 
was high time for their correspondence to cease." 

"24th. 

"... I must let Albemarle rest for the present. 
His recollections must be full of interesting matter 
from Mrs. Fitzherbert's letters, which, at proper 
seasons, one must endeavour to squeeze out of him. 
Lady Sefton learnt from Damer Dawson * that both 
the houses in London and Brighton were left to 
Minny [Mrs. Dawson-Damer], and ;^20,ooo stock, with 
all the jewels, and half of her plate; the other half to 
Mrs. Jerningham, to whom she says in her will she 
had given ;^i 5,000 during her life. ;^iooo each to her 
nieces Lady Bathurst and Mrs. Craven, and there are 
annuities to the amount of ;^iooo a year, to which 
Minny is subject till they drop in. 

" I must just mention another species of property 
that our Prinney died possessed of Perhaps no man, 
Prince or subject, ever left such a wardrobe behind 
him as our George the 4th, and the Duke of Welling- 
ton, as his executor, had to examine all his coat 
pockets, in which he found notes without end, broken 
fans, &c., &c. Now I have not the least doubt that 
what Lord Cowley told Lady Cowley was strictly 
true, viz., that the Duke, in telling this to his brother, 

* The Right Hon. G. Dawson-Damer, father of the 4th Earl of 
Portarlin^on. 



1S37-3S.] DEATH OF WILLIAM IV. 66 



o 



never let him see any one of these notes, or know 
any one of their contents. The letters burnt at Mrs. 
Fitzherbert's were so numerous, that they had to stop 
every now and then, from the excessive heat produced. 
... I dine at our Essex's to-day to meet our ' Clunch ' 
Althorp, now Earl Spencer, and, as J hope, Melbourne. 
. . . 1 was much amused at seeing our young Victoria 
playing the popular to her people on the Birthday. 
She passed this house [Brooks's] in state — four royal 
carriages and an escort of Horse Guards. The 
mother had judiciously chosen a chariot for herself 
and daughter, so they were both visible to all. The 
young one was rather too short to nod quite above 
the door, but she was always at it as well as she 
could, and the mother looked quite enchanted at her 
daughter's reception." 

" May 2. 

". . . Altho' I had Tavistock* to dinner at Essex's, 
as well as C]unch,t it was no great day in point of 
vivacity. Clunch mutters, and the amiable Tavistock 
is feeble. One thing I heard from Althorp f which 1 
never knew for certain before, that when Lord Grey's 
Government came in, one of their first acts was to 
offer Burdett a peerage, which he refused. Having 
known and watched Burdett for nearly 40 years, I 
am perfectly certain that his present hostility to the 
Government is attributable to the jealousy of his 
character. Ever since I have known him, he would 
have no rival ; and the unexpected and successful one 
he has found in Howick has driven him mad. . . . As 
you observe, there is a very general impression that 
Vic is a person with a will of her own." 

On 20th June King William breathed his last, and 
all eyes were directed upon the maiden who, little as 
statesmen could expect it of her, was destined to 
redeem the Monarchy from the dangerous disfavour 
into which it had been dragged. The circumstances 

• Afterwards 7th Duke of Bedford. 
t The 3rd Earl Spencer. 

2 Y 



664 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

of the memorable Accession have been told so often 
that a few quotations only will serve from Creevey's 
abundant references thereto. 

" Brooks's, June 2otli. 
" I cannot resist telling you that our dear little 
Queen in every respect is perfection. I learnt first of 
ail from the Duke of Argyll that, all the Privy Coun- 
cillors being assembled round the Council table, the 
Dukes of Cumberland and Sussex went into an adjoin- 
ing room, and conducted the Queen in. She took her 
chair at the head of the table and read her declaration 
in the most perfect manner possible, and with a most 
powerful and charming voice. I have since had all 
the particulars from Tavistock, who had them from 
Melbourne himself She sent for him at once, and 
begged him to draw up the declaration she ought to 
make ; which of course he did, and everybody sajrs 
it is admirable. She then put herself entirely in his 
hands in the best possible manner. . . . Poor dear 
King William's last act was signing pardons. Dear 
Lady Sefton has just been crying to me on horseback 
in the street at her earty and royal friend dying so 
.beautifully."* 

" July 24th. 

". . . Friday I dined at Rogers's, and thought I 
understood from him that Lady Holland was to be 
my only companion, my lord being picked up by the 
Queen. Instead of that, however, I found in addlition 
t^ Madagascar, Lord and Lady Langdale, the Ameri- 
can Minister (Stevenson) and his lady, Lady Seymour, 
Mrs. Abercromby, Lord Minto, Pow Thompson, Miss 
Rogers and Allen. ... I sat between Lady Langdale 
and Mrs. Abercromby . . . the only drawback to our 
communications was that I presently found we three 
had only three ears between us. 

" On Saturda}^ I dined at Dulwich ; dinner in the 
picture gallery for 30 — a triennial dinner to savants 
and virtuosos. Our artists were Chantrey, Wilson, 
Barry, Wilkie, &c., &c., — our Mecsenases, Lansdowne, 

» See p. 554. 



1837-38.] THE YOUNG QUEEN. 665 

Sutherland and Argyll, the latter of whom carried me 
in his barouche — poets and wags, Rogers, Sidney 
Smith and Creevey ! . . . Lord Grey . . . says that in 
the House of Lords he actually cried from pleasure at 
the Queen's voice and speech ; and he added that, 
after seeing and hearing three Sovereigns of England, 
the present one surpasses them all — easy — in every 
respect." 



"29tll. 

"... A word or two about Vic. She is as much 
idolised as ever, except by the Duchess of Sutherland, 
who received a very proper snub from her two days 
ago. She was half an hour late for dinner, so little 
Vic told her that she hoped it might not happen 
another time ; for, tho' she did not mind in the least 
waiting herself, it was very unpleasant to keep her 
company waiting. One day at dinner Lady Georgiana 
Grey sat next Madame Liitzen, a German who has 
been Vic's governess from her cradle ; and according 
to her there never was so perfect a creature. She 
said that now Vic was at work from morning to 
night; and that, even when her maid was combing 
out her hair, she was surrounded by official boxes 
and reading official papers." 



Earl of Essex to Mr. Creevey. 

*'g, Belgrave Square, 7 Aug., 1837. 

"Dear Creevey, 

" The Duke of Sussex has at last decided to 
dine here next Saturday the 12th. Therefore I hope 
I shall see you on that day. . . . Lord Munster has 
pleaded in forma pauperis to retain the round Tower 
at Windsor, and I hear pays about ;^iooo a year. 
The Duke of Sussex in the handsomest manner 



666 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVIL 

possible gave up his claim, and the Queen most 
kindly returned the baton to Lord Munster, who will 
of course vote against us. . . . So the Duchess of St. 
Albans is dead, and Lyndhurst married at Paris tO' 
Lewis Goldsmith's daughter. There are two great 
people amply provided for ! " 



Mr, Crcevey to Miss Ord. 

" Brooks's, Sept. 6th. 

". . . Lady Tavistock and I had a most confidential 
walk and talk. You have heard me say what a gaby 
she is ; but she is all truth and daylight. She told me 
she was in the second carriage after Vic on Sunday 
at Windsor ; and that the Queen according to her 
custom, being cold in the carriage, had got out to 
walk, and of course all her ladies had to do the same ; 
and the ground being very wet their feet soon got 
into the same state. Poor dear Lady Tavistock, when 
she got back to the Castle, could get at no dry stock- 
ings, her maid being out and her cloathes all locked 
up. ... I am sure from Lady Tavistock that she 
thinks the Queen a resolute little tit. ..." 

" Jermyn Street, Sept. 22. 

"... I have taken to Wellington and his dispatches 
again, and the more I read of him the fonder I am of 
him. He really is in every respect 2i perfect man. . . . 
Palmerston was very communicative at Stoke as to 
the great merits of the Queen. He said that any 
Ministers who had to deal with her would soon find 
she was no ordinary j)erson ; and when Lady Sefton 
observed what credit it did the Duchess of Kent to 
have made her what she was, Palmerston said the 
Duchess of Kent had every kind of merit, but that the 
Queen had an understanding of her own that could 
have been made by no one. . . . Lady Charlemont 
succeeded Lady Tavistock the other day [in waiting 
at Windsor]. She is very, very blue, and asked Lady 
T. if she might take any books out of the library. * Oh 
yes, my dear,' said Lady Tavistock, not knowing what 
reading means, 'as many as you Hke;' upon which 



1S37-38.] BRIGHTON REVISITED.' 66j 

Lady Charlemont swept away a whole row, and was 
carrying them away in her apron. Passing thro' the 
gallery in this state, whom should she meet but little 
Vic ! Great was her perturbation, for in the first place 
a low curtsy was necessary, and what was to come 
of the books, for they must curtsy too. Then to be 
found with all this property within the first half hour 
of her coming, and before even she had seen Vic ! . . . 
But Vic was very much amused with the thing alto- 
gether, laughed heartily and was as good humoured 
as ever she could be. ..." 

" Brighton, Oct. gtli. 

". . . Now for Brighton! Barry, my dear, it is 
detestable : the crowd of unknown human beings is not 
to be endured. . . . Whether it is a natural sentiment 
or not, I don't know, or whether I mistake eiinui for 
it, but I have a strong touch of melancholy in com- 
paring Brighton of the present with times gone by. 
Death has made great havoc in a very short time with 
our Royalties of the Pavilion — Prinney and ' brother 
William,' Duke of York and Duke of Kent, all gone, 
and all represented now by little Vic only. Is it not 
highly dramatic that the Duke of Kent should have 
announced to me in 1818, upon Princess Charlotte's 
death, that he was going to marry for the succession, 
and named his bride to me ; and here she is, with the 
successor by her side, and what is to become of her, 
or how she is to turn out, who shall say? 

". . . In talking to Lady Cowper of Lord Melbourne, 
and, as I suppose, of his health, Vic said : — ' He eats 
too much, and I often tell him so. Indeed I do so 
myself, and my doctor has ordered me not to eat 
luncheon any more.' — 'And does your Majesty quite 
obey him ? ' asked Lady Cowper. ' Why yes, I think 
I do,' said Vic, 'for I only eat a little broth.' Now I 
think a little Queen taking care of her Prime Minister's 
stomach, he being nearly sixty, is everything one could 
wish ! If the Tory press could get hold of this fact, 
what fun they would make of it. . . . The Duchess of 
Kent plays whist every night, and a horrible player 
she is. Vick}'-, I am happy to say, always plays chess, 
with Melbourne when he is there." 



668 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

"Brighton, Oct. 13th. 

". . . Yesterday Lady Sefton, her two eldest 
daughters and myself, sallied forth in the yellow 
coach to dine with the Queen at our own old Pavilion. 
Lord Headfort, a chattering, capering, spindle-shanked 
gaby, was in waiting, and handed Lady Sefton into 
the drawing-room, where I was glad to see Glenelg, 
and besides him were Tom Bland and a Portuguese 
diplomat, as black in the face as one's hat, but with a 
star on his stomach, I assure you ! Presently Head- 
fort was summoned away, and on his return he came 
up to me with his antics and said : — ' Mr. Creevey, you 
are to sit on the Duchess of Kent's right hand at 
dinner.' — Oh, the fright I was in about my right ear ! 
. . Here comes in the Queen, the Duchess of Kent 
the least bit in the world behind her, all her ladies in 
a row still more behind ; Lord Conyngham and Caven- 
dish on each flank of the Queen. . . . She was told by 
Lord Conyngham that I had not been presented, upon 
which a scene took place that to me was truly dis- 
tressing. The poor little thing could not get her glove 
off. I never was so annoyed in my life ; yet what 
could I do ? but she blushed and laughed and pulled, 
till the thing was done, and I kissed her hand. . . . 
Then to dinner. . . . The Duchess of Kent was agree- 
able and chatty, and she said : — * Shall we drink some 
wine?' My eyes, however, all the while were fixed 
upon Vic. To mitigate the harshness of any criticism 
I may pronounce upon her manners, let me express 
my conviction that she and her mother are one. I 
never saw a more pretty or natural devotion than she 
shows to her mother in everything, and I reckon this 
as by far the most amiable, as well as valuable, dis- 
position to start with in the fearful struggle she has 
in life before her. Now for her appearance — but all 
in the strictest confidence. A more homely little being 
you never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is 
evidently dying to be always more so. She laughs in 
real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, 
showing not very pretty gums. . . . She eats quite as 
heartily as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles. 
. . . She blushes and laughs every instant in so natural 
a way as to disarm anybody. Her voice is perfect, and- 




VISCOUNT MELBOURNE. 



[To face p. 668. 



1837-38.] THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 669 

SO is the expression of her face, when she means to say 
or do a pretty thing. . . .At night I played two rubbers 
of whist, one against the Duchess of Kent, and one as 
her partner. . . . The Queen, in leaving the room at 
night, came across quite up to me, and said : — ' How 
long do you stay at Brighton, Mr. Creevey?' Which 
I presume could mean nothing else than another 
rubber for her mother. So it's all mighty well." 

Countess Grey to Mr. Creevey. 

" Hovvick, Oct. loth. 

"... I hope you are amused at the report of Lord 
Melbourne being likely to marry the Queen. F'or my 
part I have no objection. I am inclined to be very 
loyal and fond of her ; she seems to be so considerate 
and good-natured, and I am particularly pleased with 
her just now for having sent to desire Caroline * to 
bring her little girl with her when she is to be in 
waiting." 

Marquess Wellesley to Mr. Creevey. 

"Hurlingham House, Fulham, Oct. 28th, 1837. 

"My dear Mr. Creevey, 

" In returning my grateful thanks for your 
very kind congratulations,! I trust you will believe 
that I fully appreciate their valup. You are not of 
that sect of philologists who hold the use of language 
to be the concealment of thought, nor of that tribe of 
thinkers whose thoughts require concealment. You 
would not congratulate me on the accession of any 
false honor, the result of prejudice or error or of the 
passionate caprice of party, or of idle vanity, or of any 
transient effusion of the folly of the present hour ; but 
you think the deliberate approbation of my Govern- 
ment in India declared by the Court of Directors (after 
the lapse of thirty years — after full experience of con- 
sequences and results, and after full knowledge of all 

* Lady Caroline Barrington, Lady Grey's daughter. 

t The East India Company, with whom Wellesley had been at sore 
issue in the early years of the century, had just voted ^20,000 to purchase 
an annuity for him. 



eyo THE CREEVEY PAPERS. ' [Cn. XXVIL 

ray motives, objects and principles) a just cause of 
satisfaction to me. ... In truth they have awarded 
to me an inestimable meed of honor, which has healed 
much deep sorrow, and which will render the close of 
a long public life not only tranquil and happy, but 
bright and glorious. . . . Our friend Sir John Harvey 
most appropriately has been dubbed a Governor. 
What wisdom in those who made the appointment ! 
' II est du bois dont on fait les gouverneurs.' He was 
certainly born 'your Excellency.' I think I see him 
strutting up to his petty throne, preceded by Harry 
Gre}'', Ellice, Shaw, Carnac, &c., with his stomach doubly 
embroidered ; condescending to let an occasional foul 
pun now and then with majestic benignity." 



Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

"Jermyn St., Nov. 3. 

" Both Melbourne and Lord and Lady John Russell 
wanted much to know from the Seftons how it was 
that I had amused the Duchess of Kent. The only 
solution I can offer is this. By common consent, the 
Royal evenings are the dullest possible, and no one 
presumes to attempt to make them livelier. The 
Duchess of Kent is supposed to play at cards to keep 
herself awake — scarcely ever with success. I can 
imagine, therefore, a little running fire of a wag 
tickling her ears at the time, and leaving a little 
dep)Osit on her memory. I know no other ground on 
which I can build my fame. . . . Just let me mention 
that the Sir John Harvey, mentioned in Wellesley's 
letter as the new governor of Prince Edward's Island, 
was at the head of the police when I was in Dublin, 
and I met him at dinner at the Lord Lieut's [Wellesley] 
— a large, handsome man, but by far the most vulgar 
would-be gentleman you ever beheld, extremely 
dressy withal, and my lord always remembered my 
asking — * Who was the gentleman with the em- 
broidered stomach ? ' " 

" Jermyn St., Nov. loth. 

" Let me see ; where am I to begin with my past 
movements. Suppose I say Sunday last, when I was 



1837-38.] DINNER WITH THE DUKE OF SUSSEX. 671 

told by Stephenson that the Duke of Sussex desired 
particularly that I would dine with him ; so I was 
obliged to excuse myself to my Essex, where I was 
engaged to meet Sydney Smith. I have yet to learn 
why 1 was so specially summoned by little Sussex, as 
there were only his household — Ciss * and the men — 
with Charley Gore and me, and nothing said worth 
remembering. . . . Monday at Essex's, with the ac- 
customed sprinkling of artists, which I am quite 
accustomed to, and indeed like. Tuesday at Charles 
Fox's, Addison Road — no joke as to distance ; 8 
shillings coach hire out and back, besides turnpikes ! 
The company — Madagascar,! Allen, Babbage the 
philosopher, Hamick (Lord Grey's doctor and 
baronet). Van de Weyer, Belgian Minister, Hed- 
worth Lambton^ and wife, an unknown man, and 
Melbourne. ... In the evening we had the bride, 
Lady Winchilsea,§ of whom I had heard so much ; 
she certainly did appear to me as beautiful a w^oman 
as I had ever seen. Wednesday at Powell's : com- 
pany — Duke of Norfolk, Albemarle, old Billy 
Russell,! Stephenson Blount and myself. 

"25th. 

"... I dined on this day week at Brougham's — a 
duet ; and a more artificial chap I never had to do 
with ; except, indeed, that his temper not infrequently 
betrayed him, and shewed him in a state of the most 
spiteful insurrection against the present Govt. You 
see he is distinctly shewing his teeth in the Lords, 
and will fasten them on the Government before he is 
a few days older. I quite approve of what he has 
already said there, tho' not of his spiteful motives in 
doing it." 

* The Duke of Sussex's wife, Lady Cecilia Buggin, afterwards 

created Duchess of Inverness. 
t Lady Holland. 

+ Younger brother of the ist Earl of Durham, 
§ Daughter of the Right Hon. Sir Charles Bagot. ' ' 

II Lord William Russell, son of the 4th Duke of Bedford : murdered 

by his valet, 1840. 



672 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

" Dec. 4th. 

"... I met Hayter one day this week at Lord 
Essex's, and asked him to tell me anything new about 
the little Queen. He said she was quite as amiable 
and kind and lively as ever. He has got on a good 
way with the State picture he is making of her. She 
said to him the other day : — * I am very curious to 
know how you mean to place my hands. Just take 
them and place them as you intend in the picture.' 
A very delicate commission to execute, as Hayter 
observed ; but he did so ; and then the Queen turned 
to Lady Mulgrave and said : — * I have often thought, 
if I had to paint a Queen, how I would place her 
hands ; and, curiously enough, this is the very position 
I had hit on.' " 

" 15th. 

". . . Cutlar Ferguson * is most enthusiastic about 
the Queen. He has had to lay before her about 
twenty Courts Martial — only think of such a subject 
for a girl of 18 ! After seeing the Judge Advocate^ 
she is closeted with the Commander-in-chief, Lord 
Hill, upon the same matter ; and Ferguson tells me 
that both Lord Hill and himself are lost in astonish- 
ment at the manner in which she makes herself under- 
stand these matters. Ferguson dined at the palace a 
few nights ago — one of the fog nights — so that when 
he arrived he found to his horror that the Queen had 
been at dinner 20 minutes. When he was about to, 
take the opportunity after dinner of apologising for 
being so late, the Queen begun first by saying: — 'I 
said before dinner, I am sure Mr. Ferguson is stopt 
in the Park by the fog.' Is she not a handy little 
Vic?..." 



Lady Louisa Molyneux to Mr. Crecvey. 

"Arlington St., Dec. 26, 1837. 

". . . Punch Greville is at present our best re- 
source, and Poodle Byng now and then drops in, it 
would be ungrateful to say, without contributing 

* Judge Advocate General. 



1837-38.] HOLKHAM. 673 

much to our amusement. We have been tempted to- 
day to go to the Magnetism — a most disagreeable 
sight ; but nobody can persuade me it is a sham. Its 
utility may be a question, but it is impossible to see 
the poor people of all ages — some quite children out 
of the hospitals — under the influence, and suppose 
they have been taught to impose upon you. The 
best part of the entertainment was Lady Aldborough 
in an opera hat, large diamond ear-rings, and rouged 
up to the eyes, trying to put the operator out of 
countenance by her noisy questions, and bouncing- 
out of the room, declaring disbelief in the whole 
thing. . . ." 

Mr, Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Holkham, Dec. 29th. 

"... I had this cold on me before I left London ; 
it did not, however, prevent me from dancing down 
twenty-five couples in a country dance last night — 
my partner. Dowager Anson. It was the usual Xmas 
ball for servants in the audit room. . . . The Earl of 
Leicester, aged 85, opened the ball. He is a mar- 
vellous man, but I think he is going out, tho' he burns 
as bright as bright to the last* Ellice was a real 
treasure to me during our two days' journey down 
here. No one is m.ore mixed up with passing events 
in the world than he is. He hears daily from Mel- 
bourne, and I know to a turn the present rickety 
nature of poor Melbourne's cabinet." 

" Holkham, Jany. 3rd, 183S. 

". . . The worst thing of all for the Government is 
this. Aber, even our own Aber,t won't stand any 
longer being given up to be devoured by the dogs of 
the House of Commons, and no Ministers of the Crown 
to protect him. I saw from the first, when he was left 
unprotected, and when he made his pathetic and most 
unsuccessful appeal to the House to rally round him,, 
that he was done. Of all the mistakes John Russell 

* He died in 1842, outliving Creevey by four years. 
t The Speaker. 



6/4' THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

has made, and they have been numerous, this is the 
greatest, and in my opinion it is irreparable. It is the 
first instance in the history of the House of Commons 
of the Speaker being publickly worried by its members 
and the Government to sit by and take no part. . . . 
Then, alas ! tho' last, not least, ... in truth little Vic 
and her mother are not one, tho' Melbourne knov^s of 
no other cause of this disunion than Conroy, whom 
the Duchess of Kent sees still almost daily, and for a 
long time together. Melbourne speaks of the young 
one with the same enthusiasm as ever, and has the 
highest opinion possible of her understanding. The 
part she at present plays is putting herself unre- 
servedly into the exclusive management of Melbourne, 
without apparently thinking of any one else. This, 
at all events, must be a great relief and support to 
him, whilst it lasts. In the midst of one's croaking, 
there is another source of consolation — that the 
Tories never appeared in a more forlorn and shattered 
condition, or less likely to turn all our blunders to 
their own advantage. . . . Lord Leicester shoots daily ; 
amongst other companions and competitors are his 
3 sons. The eldest. Lord Coke,* aged 15, on Xmas 
Day shot 5 woodcock, and always shoots from 30 to 
40 head daily." 

" Jermyn Street, 17th. 
"You see, my dear, that towards the end of last 
week our EUice received a dispatch from Lord Durham 
saying he had accepted the mission to Canada, but 
that he could do nothing without EUice. So we left 
Holkham on Saturday. . . . My companion continued 
to the last as communicative as ever. . . . Lord 
Leicester is a marvellous man in everything, but 
above all in his clear and perspicuous telling of 
stories, of which he has great abundance. I was 
much amused one day when he was driving me, upon 
Lady Holland's name being mentioned, he said to 
me : — * I hope we shall find Charles Fox and Charlie 
Gore when we get home. I am very fond of Charles 
Fox, and particularly of Lady Mary.' I remarked jj 
that I had never heard of Lord Holland being at 

* The present Earl of Leicester. 



1837-38.] LADY CHARLOTTE BURYS BOOK. 675 

Holkham, and yet that of course he must have been. 
'No,' said he, 'his uncle Charles used to live here, 
and I have often asked Lord Holland, but of course 
he would not come without Lady Holland, and it was 
quite out of the question my asking her. I dine at 
Lord Holland's now and then. When I do so, I am 
as attentive as I ought to be to Lady Holland, and 
there is no kind of flattery she does not apply to me ; 
but it won't do ! She is not a woman I approve of at all. 
I arn only surprised that so many people have been 
bullied by her to letting her into their houses. For 
myself, I have always made up my mind that she 
should never enter mine.' Bravo ! King Tom. What 
a charming subject to plague her with the first time 
she gives me any offence. . . . Certain it is that this 
Holkham is by far the greatest curiosity in England." 



Lady Louisa Molyncux to Mr. Creevey. 

" Arlington St., Jan. 17th, 1838. 

". . . Papa has found some amusement in a book 
that occupies everybody now — more, it appeai-s, from 
its atrocity than from any merit it has — Memoires et 
correspondence of Queen Caroline, edited by Lady 
Charlotte Bury, in which there are so many bad 
stories ill told, and so many personal remarks on 
living people, that I cannot imagine anybody ever 
speaking to her again. Her name is not to the book, 
but everybody knows it is hers. 

" Poodle Byng, &c., have tried, it seems, rather a 
dangerous experiment with the [new] House of 
Commons, by which they lighted it so brilliantly 
that you could read the smallest print ; and if you 
held a candle to the paper it added no light to the 
dazzling glare, which came from 5000 apertures in 
gas-pipes between the roofs, where the thermometer 
was at 120, and kept rising! They had fire engines 
in attendance, and a hose laid along every gas-pipe 
for fear of accidents ; but they will not venture to try 
it again. . . . Think of Lord Foley having sold Witley 
to Ld. Ward * for ^^890,000 ! He was some little time 

* Created Earl of Dudley in i860. 



6^6 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

in making up his mind to part with the place they 
were all so fond of; but he will now have ;^i9,ooo a 
year without any debt, instead of being the wretched 
impoverished man he was.* I have had a letter from 
Alava, who says of Sir John Colbornet: — 'J'ai grande 
confiance dans Colborne — officier du premier ordre, 
tres aime et tres estime tant de Sir J. Moore comme 
du Due de Wellington, et quel bel eloge ! II est non 
seulement excellent militaire, mais qualifie pour toute 
espece de commandement, et d'une moralite et probite 
dignes d'autres temps.' 

" The burning of the Royal Exchange has put the 
City in great dismay. They are very quiet, and were 
to give ;i^i6,ooo this morning at 9 o'clock for a house 
in Lombard Street, to go on with at present, and meet 
there at twelve. I hope the poor bells chiming their 
death song brought tears into your eyes." 

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord. 

" Jermyn St., 27th. 
"... I have really been so disturbed in my mind 
by this Canada Bill that I could not write till its fate 
was decided. I am at a^loss for words to express my 
contempt for the Government in the endless bungling 
they have made on this occasion. Never was there 
such a piece of luck for them as the Canada rebellion, 
its speedy reduction, and, above all, the opportunity 
it afforded of considering past errors and making a 
wise and just arrangement for the future. All man- 
kind was with them upon this subject ; but some 
maniac or demon in their counsels would mar all 
these advantages by the manner or form of their Bill 
of Redress. I said from the first that every word 
uttered by Peel was gospel, and that nothing was left 
for the Government but to go down on their marrow- 
bones and to withdraw the gratuitous, useless and 
unconstitutional parts of their own Bill. To think, 
too, of their volunteering Glenelg's instructions to 
Durham. . , , Well, but now let me have done with 

* See p. 595. 

t Created Lord Seaton in 1839. Was Lieutenant- GoverBor of 
Lower Canada. 



1S37-38.] WHERE SHALL I GO NEXT? 6^7 

this disgusting hash, and ''where shall I go next ? 
Wh}', to Earl Durham himself, I think, with whom I 
dined at the Duke of Norfolk's on Tuesday, and no 
one could be more affable and conciliatory than our 
Canada chief He had seen the Queen that morning, 
and I made him describe the meeting. After being 
presented by Glenelg, the Queen made a sign to the 
latter to withdraw, and then some conversation took 
place between the Queen and her Ambassador, in 
which the latter [Durham] expressed his earnest 
hopes that he might enjoy her Majesty's permission 
to extend her clemency in any degree towards her 
revolted Canadian subjects. This she accorded in 
the fullest and most gracious manner. Durham was 
full of her praises — of her sense and excellent 
manners, but he admitted to me that neither on that 
occasion nor any other did she utter a word to him 
on what we call politics. 

" A propos to our little Vic — we are all enchanted 
with her for her munificence to the Fitzclarences. Be- 
sides their pensions out of the public pension list, they 
had nearly ;^io,ooo a year given them by their father* 
out of his privy purse, every farthing of which the 
Queen continues out of her privy purse, with quanti- 
ties of other such things. For an instance within my 
own knowledge — Sir John Lade, a very rich man, 
and once the greatest crony of George the 4th when 
Prince of Wales, was reduced to beggary at last by 
having kept such good company ; so much so, that 
Lord Anglesey, who had lived with both, went to 
our Prinney t and actually made him give Lade ;^5oo 
a year out of his privy purse. When brother William 
came to the throne, he continued ;!^300 a year to Lade 
out of his privy purse ; but upon the accession of 
Vic it was supposed there would be an end of it 
altogether. As poor Lade was a brother zvhip and 
crony of Sefton, I saw letters from him imploring 
Sefton's interest with Melbourne for a continuance of 
a portion of this pension, however small ; but Mel- 
bourne in reply, however friendl}'' he might be, could 
hold out no prospect of relief for him. Think, there- 
fore, of me being the first to tell Sefton last night 

* WiUiam IV. t George IV. 



6^8 THE CREEVEY PAPERS. [Ch. XXVII. 

what Melbourne told me in the course of the day. 
The Queen's pleasure had been taken as to the further 
reduction or extinction of this charge upon the privy 
purse, when she asked if Sir John Lade was not above 
80 years of age, and being answered in the affirmative, 
she said she would neither have the pension enquired 
into nor reduced, but continued on her own privy 
purse. ... I wish that conceited puppy Howick * 
had resigned and absconded from the Cabinet when 
he announced his intention to Ellice at Holkham to 
do so. It is quite clear that all this mischief has 
arisen from his obstinacy and the foolish attempt of 
his colleagues to satisfy or pacify him ; and the latter 
object seems to have been accomplished at the ex- 
pense and to the eternal disgrace, I fear, of his 
betters." 

Here the letters suddenly cease. These lines 
must have been among the last from Mr. Creevey's 
industrious pen, and lend a peculiar significance to 
the enquiry contained in them — "Where shall I go 
next?" Of the manner of his death or of those who 
tended him in his last illness, nothing is known. He 
died on 5th February, 1838, wanting but two or three 
weeks to complete his seventieth year, and was 
buried in Greenwich Hospital. 

* Afterwards 3rd Earl Grey. 



INDEX. 



The figures in italics nfer to the notes only. 



Abbot, Charles, Speaker, 4, 298, 412 ; 

on Peel's first speech, 122 ; created 

Lord Colchester, 262 
Abercorn, Duke of, 310 
Abercromby, M.P. for Edinburgh, 

36 
Abercromby, Hon. James (created 
Lord Dunfermline), Speaker, 36, 
113, 120, 121, 12S, 191, 247, 336, 
379. 462, 490, 618, 651, 673 ; <' fac- 
tious and violent," 217 ; christened 
" Young Cole " by Brougham, 327 ; 
Brougham's fellow-counsellor, 344 ; 
"my Scotch master, Jemmy," 601 ; 
appointed to the I\Iint, 621 ; Grey 
on, 638 ; Creevey's "old and tried 
friend," 654 
Abercrom.by, Hon. !\Irs. James, 651, 

654, 664 
Abercromby, Sir Ralph, Commander 

of the Army in Egypt, 48 
Aberdeen, George, 4th Earl of, 17B 
Abinger, Lord (Sir James Scarlett), 
Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 
12, 344, 398, 457> 490> 56S, 640, 
643, 652, 654 
Abisbal, General (Spain), 416 
Acheson, Lord (afterwards Earl of 

Gosford), 533 
Adair, Sir Robert (the target of 
Canning's satire), 22, 348, 490, 
496, 553> 654 
Adam, Rt. Hon. William, Attorney- 
General to the Prince of Wale? and 
Lord Chief Commissioner, to the 
Scottish Jury Court, 39, 107, 213, 
^53 



Addington, Rt. Hon. Llenry. See 

Sidmouth, Viscount 
Adelaide, Queen, 425, 558, 559, 566, 
604 ; her dislike of Duchess of 
Kent, 580 ; at Olivia de Ros' 
wedding, 605 ; her antipathy to 
the Whigs, 640 ; her fixed impres- 
sion, 642 
Adkin, Tom, 99 
Adour, Congreve rockets at the 

passage of the, 147 
Age, the, 438, 542 
Agricultural depression, 397, 436, 

489 
Alava, Representative of Spain at 
Bourbon Court, 277, 279, 289, 395, 
444, 568, 578, 605, 649 
Albemarle, Countess of {nee Hun- 

loke), 375 
Albemarle, George, 3rd Earl of, 375 
Albemarle, William, 4th Earl of, 163, 
336, 348, 439, 566, 671 ; a saying 
of William IV., 568 ; the King and 
the Reform Bill, 586 ; Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert's letters, 661, 662 ■ 
Albuera, 185 

Aldborough, Lady, 281, 661, 673 
Aldborough, Suffolk, 569 
Aldborough, Yorkshire, 569 
Alexander, Master in Chancery, 410 
Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, 
offers mediation between England 
and France, 15 ; his visit to London, 
187, 194; a favourite with the 
Whigs, 191 ; Napoleon on King 
of Prussia and, 196 ; a remonstrance, 
346 ; Lord Holland's peace-offering, 
357 ; the revolution in Spain, 395 ; 
Lady Londonderry's transfer, 400 

2 Z 



68o 



INDEX. 



"All the Talents" Ministry, formed 
by Granville, 40, 42, 75, 81, 84 

Allen, M.D., John, 260, 264, 381, 
497, 498, 664, 671 

Allen, Lord, 630, 654, 656 

Allies, in Paris, 187 ; in Belgium, 
218 

Almeida, 88 

Alten, General Sir Charles, 222, 235 

Althorp, Viscount (3rd Earl of 
Spencer), " Clunch," 157, 264, 389, 
413, 462, 558, 588, 591, 597,. 602, 
639 ; candidate for Cambridge, 
75-77 ; his motion about Prince 
of Wales' outfit, 216 ; letter to 
Creevey, 359 ; his first budget as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, 560, 
563 ; Stanley's obstinacy about 
Irish tithes, 594 ; the scene between 
Durham and Grey, 607 ; resigns on 
Coercion Bill, 624, 625 ; remains 
in office, 626 ; succeeds to Earldom, 
637, 638, 663 

Alvanley, Lord, 401, 471, 509 ; 
challenges O'Connell, 646 

Amelia, Princess, her illness and 
death, 98, 135 

America, war with, 165, 166-173; 
peace, 211, 212 

Amherst, Lord, 337 

Amiens, treaty of, 10 

Andover, Viscountess (afterwards 
Lady Digby), 378, 454 

Andrews, Miles Peter, 63 

Anglesey, Marchioness of, 523, 530 

Anglesey, Marquess of, 504, 523, 530, 
573 ; recalled by Wellington from 
Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, 516, 
535-537 ; his proclamation against 
Catholic meetings, 519; his view of 
Ireland, 524 ; his leg's grave at 
Vittoria, 531 ; Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland again, 607 ; and Sir John 
Lade, 677 

Angouleme, Duchess of, 246 

Annual Register, 339, 426 

Anson, George, 416, 556, 596 

Anson, Hon. Mrs. George {ne'e 
Forester), 556, 596 

Anson, Lady, 377, 378, 422, 673 ; 
letter to Creevey on the battue at 
Holkham, 394 

Antalda, Marquis of, 356 

Antrim, Countess of, 18 

Antrim, Randal, 4tli Earl of, 18 

Antrim, Alexander, 5th Earl of, 18 

Appleby, Creevey SI. P. for, 2 98 

Arbuthnot, 463 



Arbuthnot, Mrs., 628 

Argyll, Duke of, 568, 583, 664, 665 

Armstrong, Colonel, 631, 632 

Arran, Earl of, 585 

Arundel, Earl of (afterwards 13th 

Duke of Norfolk), 245 
Ashley, Lady Emily («/<? Cowper), 

540 
Ashton, Mr., 171, 172 
Assaye, battle of, 495 
Athol, James, 2nd Duke of, 38 
Athol, John, 3rd Duke of, 37 
Athol, John, 4th Duke of, 38, 336, 

499 
Auckland, William, ist Lord, 114 
Auckland, George, 2nd Lord, 114, 

120, 344, 437, 456, 623 ; appointed 

by Grey First Lord of the Admiralty, 

618-620 ; his hand forced by 

Brougham, 625 
Audley, Lord, 337 
Augusta, Princess, 604 
Austerlitz, battle of, 44, 45, 49 
Austin, Mr., 302 
Austria, 213, 218, 482 
Austria, Prussia, and England 'Vs., 

France, 44 



Babbage, 671 

Bacon, Lady Charlotte, 402 

Bacourt, M. de, 612 

Badajos, siege of, 145 

Baden, Princess of, 270 

Bagot, Lord, 337 

Bagot, Rt, Hon. Sir Charles, exe- 
cutor of Queen Caroline's will, 367, 
Q71 

Baillie, Dr., 245, 266 

Baird, Sir David, 173 

Balfour of Balbirnie, Miss Katherine 
(Mrs. Edward EUice), 615 

Ballisteros, General (Spain), 416 

Bamfyld, Sir Charles, 47 

Bank Note Bill, 145, 146, 163 

Bank of England, suspension of cash 
payments by, 292 

Bankes, Mr., 136, 162,272, 354,376, 
498 

Bankhead, Dr., 386 

Barham, Mrs., 18 

Baring, Alexander, 353, 397, 432, 586 

Barnard, Lord, 122 

Barnes, Editor of the Times, 579, 599 

Barnes, General Sir Edward, Ad- 
jutant-General, 224, 225, 230, 231, 



INDEX. 



68 1 



• 238, 277, 279, 282, 283, 285, 388, 

562 ; wounded at Waterloo, 234, 

235 ; on Lord Hill, 278 
Barras, 6 
Harrington, Lady Caroline {/tee Grey), 

669 
Barry, Sir Charles, 664 
Barrymore, Lord, 78 
Barthelemy, M., the banker, 7 
Bath, Marquess of, 337, 415 
Bathurst, Countess, 324, 662 
Bathurst, Earl, vSecretary of State for 

War and the Colonies, 166, 214, 

273, 324, 352, 369- 454, 455. 459 

Bathurst, Lady Georgiana, 496 

Bathurst, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles 
Bragge, President of Board of Con- 
trol, and Chancellor of the Duchy 
of Lancaster, 114, 166, 352, 354 

Bathurst, Seymour, 335 

Battue, an early example of the prac- 
tice, 393, 394 

Beauchamp, Earl and Countess, 447 

Beauclerk, Lord H., 190 

Beauclerk, Mrs., 182 

Beaufort, Duchess of, 324 

Beaufort Duke of, 324, 443, 507 

Beauharnais, Viscount, 6 

Beaumont, Marquis of, 345 

Bedford, Duchess of, 617, 645 

Bedford, John, 4th Duke of, Q71 

Bedford, Francis, 5th Duke of, 451 

Bedford, John, 6th Duke of, 22, 94, 
99, III, 121, 308, 317, 492, 497, 
61 7> 639; on parliamentary re- 
form, 95 

Bedford, Francis, 7th Duke of. See 
Tavistock, Marquis of 

Bedlam, 421 

Belfast, Lady, 439 

Belfast, Lord, 439, 449 

Belgrave, Lady Elizabeth, 390 

Eelgrave, Lord, 390 

Belhaven, Lady, 309 

Bellamy, lilr., 392 

Bellew, Mr., 521; 

Bellingham, Mr. Perceval's murderer, 
Uo 

Bennetj Hon. H. G., 157, 160, 305, 
306, 319, 329, 344, 371, 376, 406, 
413 ; Creevey on, 36 ; his letters 
to Creevey, 185, 187, 191, 194, 
211, 213, 215, 240, 256, 264, 294; 
his wife's veto, 210 ; * ' this is scanda- 
lous," 342 

Bennet, Hon. Mrs. H. G. {nee Rus- 
sell), 210, 296 

Eentham, 393 



Bentinck, Lord George, 442 
Benvenuto Cellini, Roscoe's Life of, 

505 

Berenger de, 20S 

Beresford, General, at Albuera, 1S5 

Beresford, Lord, 468 

Beresford, Rt. Hon. John, Chairman 
of the Revenue Board of Ireland, 42 

Bergami, Bartolommeo, Queen Caro- 
line's courier, 301, 312, 322, 324, 
331, 33S» 366, 415 

Bergami, Victorine, 366 

Berkeley,5Admiral Sir Maurice Frede- 
rick (afterwards Lord Fitzhardinge), 
147, 527. 530 

Berkeley, Captain, 423 

Berkeley, Hon. — , 247 

Berkeley, Lady, 49 

Berkeley, Lady Charlotte {nee Gor« 
don-Lennox), 527 

Berkeley, Thomas, 6th Earl of, 67 

Berri, Due de, 223, 225 

Berri, Duchesse de, 594 

Berry, Miss, 597 

Berthier, General, 5, 225 

Bertrand, M., 368 

Bessborough, Frederick, 3rd Earl of, 
62, 254:, A,^2., 513 

Bessborough, John, 4th Earl of. See 
Duncannon, Lord 

Bessborough, John, 5th Earl of, 610 

Bessborough, Lady, 62 

Bessborough Estates, Ireland, 513 

Bettesworth, R.N., Captain, 615 

Bexley, Lord. See Vansittart, N.. 

Bickersteth, 645^ 

Bingham, General, 601 

Binning, Lord, 206 

Birch, Mr., 555 

Black, Sergeant, 452 

Blackburne, John, il.P, for Lan- 
cashire, 436 

Blackwood, ]Mrs. {nee Sheridan), 
afterwards Lady Dufferin, lastly 
Countess of Gifford, 39 

Blake, Mr., 511 

Bland, Thomas, 668 

Blaquiere, M., 403 

Blessington, Lady, 428, 630 

Blessington, Lord, 630 

Blomfield, C. J., Bishop of London, 

537 
Bloomfield, Lieut. -General Sir Ben- 
jamin (afterwards Lord), George 
IV. 's Private Secretary, etc., 66, 68, 
73, 150, 368, 373, 400 ; British Min- 
ister at Stockholm, 385; "ruined 
from that moment," 447 



682 



INDEX. 



Bloomfield, son of above, 400 

Blount, Stephenson, 671 

Blucher, his likeness to Lord Grey, 
196 ; Wellington and, 22S ; his re- 
ported defeat by Napoleon, 231 ; at 
Ligny, 236 ; at Laon, 280 

Bolton, Judge, 387 

Borghese, Pauline, Princess, 368, 480 

Borgo, Pozzo di, 649 

Boston, Lord, 439 

Bould, Miss, 389 

Boulton, Mr., 172 

Bourmont, General, deserts to Blucher 
at Waterloo, 544, 594 

Bourrienne, M., Life of Napoleon^ 544, 

545. 549 

Bouverie, Mrs., 13, 82 

Bowes-Daly, 128 

Boyce, a Protestant squire of Wex- 
ford, 525 

Boyd, Benfield and Co., 35, 37 

Boyle, Lady Augusta (afterwards 
FitzClarence), 642 

Bradshaw, Mr., in 

Brand, Tom (22nd Lord Dacre), 653 

Brandling, M.P. for Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, 23 

Brandling, Charles, 108 

Brandling, Miss Fanny, 552, 620, 627 

Brandling, Ralph, 109 

Brandling, William, 620 

Brandon, Lady, 502 

Brandon, Rev. Wm. Crosbie, D.D., 
Lord, 502 

Brass Founders' Procession, 334 

Braybrooke, Lord, 622 

Briggs, Captain, 312 

Brighton, past and present, Creevey 
on, 667 

Brogden, Mr., 22, 352 

Brooke, Sir Charles, 279 

Brougham, Henry, 128, 159, 308, 324, 
331. 335. 344, 347, 35 1> 352, 376- 
378, 398, 400, 402-404, 414, 418, 
421, 437, 441, 445, 455, 461, 462, 
465, 494, 497, 501, 537, 538, 551, 
560, 564, 597, 603, 609, 620, 624, 
637 ; his review of Lauderdale's 
book in Edinburgh Review, 30 ; 
Grey on, 108, 482, 526 ; M.P. for 
Camelford, 153 ; candidate for 
Liverpool, 156, 171, 173 ; Creevey's 
distrust of, 168-171, 365, 431, 471, 
472, 478, 479, 491 ; his "volley of 
declamation," 172 ; the weapon 
ready, 175; and Queen Caroline, 
177, 199, 204, 295, 296, 301-303, 
316-319, 326, 329, 338, 341, 344, 



353, 355, 360, 365, 488; letter 
from Lady C. Lindsay, 183 ; on 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 186 ; his article 
on Norway in Edinburgh Revieiv, 
186 ; his profound resources, 197 ; 
blames W hi thread, 204 ; speech on 
Treaty of Paris, 249, 250; "has 
done everything Avith no help," 
257 ; on Tierney, 264 ; Duke of 
Kent and Madame St. Laurent, 270 ; 
"quite silent," 272 ; his prophecy 
about Creevey's Thetford seat, 274 ; 
feels the loss of Romilly, 293 ; Fox's 
proposed epitaph, 299 ; his offer to 
Lord Liverpool on Queen's behalf, 
301-303 ; his speeches on the Pains 
and Penalties Bill, 310, 321, 322 ; 
Lady Charlotte Greville and, 314, 
323 ; the " Coles," 327 ; on Oldi 
and Mariette as witnesses, 328 ; 
and the Duke of Roxburgh, 345 ; 
his depression, 357 ; his plans to 
rouse the North for the Queen, 
360 ; the Queen's illness, death, 
and funeral, 362, 363, 367; "he 
absolutely hated her," 366 ; Napo- 
leon's appeal, 368 ; Lauderdale on, 
370, 496 ; speech for reduction of 
taxation, 375 ; Lady Holland and, 
379 ; his bid for Westmorland 
farms, 393 ; and Canning, 406, 408, 
410, 463, 467 ; Lady Jersey and, 
413, 415, 475, 565; Creevey's 
Reform pamphlet, 435 ; Dandy 
Raikes' quarrel with, 448, 449, 451 ; 
his "perfidy" to Lambton, 468; 
declines post of Chief Baron of the 
Exchequer, 471 ; " another instance 
of his hypocrisy," 472 ; denounced 
by "the Malignants," 478, 491; 
Lamb ton's peerage, 484; "acting 
without the slightest tincture of 
interest," 487; "the Arch-fiend," 
479 ; Grey and Cleveland, 491, 
492 ; Burdett on, 495 ; his Cabinet 
dinner, 496 ; candidate for West- 
morland, 507 ; his literary schemes, 
548, 549 ; on Napoleon, 549 ; Lord 
Chancellor, 556; "Vaux et prte- 
terea nihil," 558 ; and Sefton, the 
Times' attacks on Grey, 561, 562 ; 
Eldon and, 566; "an intriguing, 
perfidious rogue," 569; on the 
batch of new peers, 572 ; Lady 
Grey on, 573 ; " Old Wicked- 
shifts," 578, 616, 617 ; and the 
Reform Bill, 579, 589, 634; and 
the Duchess of Kent's absence 



INDEX. 



68 



from William IV.'s Coronation, 
579,580 ; his demand for new peers, 
583, 587 ; William IV. and, 5S8, 
602, 639, 640 ; Gascoigne's motion 
to reduce Ordnance Vote, 607 ; 
"Beelzebub," 614, 634 ; and Mrs. 
Petre, 618 ; indignant with Grey, 

. 619 ; Roscoe, 622 ; forces Auck- 
land's hand, 625 ; " drove Grey 
from office," 627 ; his defence, 629, 
630, 636 ; attacks Durham in 
Editiburgh Revinv, 631; "letters 
of a perfect Bedlamite," 640, 642 ; 
his "insincere jaw," 647; some 
correspondence of George III., 660 ; 

. his spiteful motives, 671 ; his letters 

: to Creevey, 119, 134, 144, 145, 154, 
I55> 174, 178-183, 186, 192, 194, 
195, 201, 202, 204, 206, 211, 243, 
245, 247, 252, 258, 261, 294, 297, 
3195 358, 361, 366, 386, 387, 408, 
456, 488, 548, 550, 577 

Brougham, Lady (Mrs. Spalding, 
nee Eden), 352, 413, 414, 431, 449, 
462 

Brougham, James, 571, 613 

Brougham, William, 562 

Brown, Mrs. (Lord Thurlow's 
daughter), 60 

Brozam, Count, A.D.C. to the Czar, 
281 

Bruce, Lavalette, 406, 416 

Brudenel, Lord, 417 

Brunswick, Duke of, 183, 184 ; killed 
at Quatre Bras, 230 

Brussels, before Waterloo, 218, 219 ; 
Creevey at, 205-273, 292-295 

Buckingham, George, ist Marquess 
of, 27 

Buckingham Palace, 493, 649 

Buckingham, Richard, 2nd Marquess 
of (afterwards 1st Duke of), 215, 
563; "is trying hard for office," 
217 ; duel with Sir Thomas Hardy, 
256 ; the Queen's trial, 316 ; his 
letter to Canning, 41 1 

Buckinghamshire, Earl of, 159 

Buggin, Lady Cecilia, Duchess of 
Inverness, 572, 585, 600, 671 

Buggin, Sir George, 58~i 

Bulow, Herr, 604 

Bulteel, Lady Elizabeth, 575, 648 

Bulteel, Mr., 575, 585 

Buonaparte, Napoleon. &^ Napoleon 

Burdett, Sir Francis, 60, 97, 249, 414, 
416, 540, 541 ; V. agriculturists, 
194; on Roman Catholic question, 
100, 409 ; Creevey on, 107 ; on 



Reform, 128; imprisoned in Tower, 
13I) 133 ; ^"'1 Brougham, 202, 
203, 249, 495 ; refuses peerage, 
663 ; his letters to Creevey, 3, 132 

Burford, Earl of (afterwards 9th Duke 
of St. Albans), 415 

Burgess, Whitbread's solicitor, 241 

Burgh, Sir Ulysses de, 281 

Burghersh, Lady, 197 

Burgos, siege of, 173 

Burgoyne, 120 

Burke, Edmund, loS, 162 

Burn, Mr., 521 

Burrell, Walter, M.P. for Sussex, 376 

Burton, A.D.C. and Secretary to 
Lord Anglesey, 530 

Bury, Lady Charlotte, Memoirs and 
Correspondence of Quee7i Cai-oline, 

675 

Bury, Lord, 417 

Bushe, Chief Justice, 517, 525, 530 

Bute, John, ist Marquess of, 228 

Butler, Lady Eleanor, 527 

Butler, Lady Mary, 107 

Byng, G. ("Poodle"), 128, 204,438, 
572, 621, 632, 656, 672, 675 

Byng, Hon. Mrs., 656 

Byron, Lord, Hours of Idleness, 75 ; 
Lady C. Lamb's Glenarvon and 
Vivian, 255 ; at Geneva, 259 ; on 
Dr. John Allen, 2Q0 ; a rejected 
poem, 294 



Cabarrus, Madame (previously Com- 

tesse de Fontenay, then Madame 

de Tallien, lastly Princess de 

Chimay), 6, 7 
Caithness, Lord, 257 
Calcraft, John, 46, 113, 128, 333, 

358, 448, 456, 502, 555 _ 
Callander, Caroline Henrietta (Mrs. 

T. Sheridan), 39 
Calthorpe, Lord, 336 
Cambray, taken by storm, 239 ; 

Creevey at, 275 
Camelford, Lord, 60 
Cameron, James, 529 
Campbell, Lady Charlotte, 177, 199, 

630 
Campbell, Lady Marj', Baroness 

Stratheden, 654 
Campbell, Lord Chancellor, on 

Twiss, B54: 
Campbell, Sir Colin, 417, 495 
Campbell, Sir John (afterwards 

Baron), Go4: 



684 



INDEX. 



Canada Bill, 676 

Canning, Colonel, Wellington's 
. A.D.C., killed at Waterloo, 230 
Canning, Grorge, 262, 342, 388, 395, 
401, 403, 427, 432, 543 ; and Ad- 
dington, 8 ; Creevey on, 9 ; on 
Fox and Pitt, 20 ; satirises Adair, 
22 ; illness of George III., 27 ; 
Foreign Secretary, 93, 391, 394; 
quarrel and duel with Castlereagh, 
93, 96-98, 106, 108, 639 ; Whit- 
bread on, 99, 109 ; Grey on, 108, 
159, 460, 482 ; on Coke, 108 ; 
> Brandling all for, ibid. ; his rhe- 
torical flourishes, 123 ; the Wal- 
cheren Expedition, 124; "every 
Frenchman that falls," etc., 134 ; 
■disbands his troop, 151 ; and 
Wellesley, 154, 157, 161-163 ; the 
Liverpool seat, 155, 156, 169, 171- 
173 ; and Brougham, 156, 178, 

206, 209, 253, 406-408, 410, 463, 
467, 471 ; the Roman Catholic 
-question, 158, 445, 450 ; Sheridan 
on, 164; "on the skirts of the 
party," 175 ; Ambassador to Lisbon, 

207, 287, 377 ; Peel's election for 
Oxford, 263 ; Governor-General of 
India, 385-387, 411, 412 ; called 
"Merryman" by Brougham, 392, 
.393; "has his hands full," 397; 
and George IV., 401, 452, 453 ; his 
irritability, 405 ; and Lord Ken- 
sington's son, 415 ; Cobbett's Life 
of, 436 ; and Hobhouse, 441 ; his 
and Huskisson's Corn Bill, 442, 
.443, 464 ; his illness, 448 ; Premier, 
forming his Cabinet, 453-459, 467, 
487, 488 ; the Penryn case, 461 ; 
and Wellington, 463, 466, 477 ; 
•death and funeral, 467, 468 ; monu- 
ment, 475 

Canning, Miss, 390 

Cantillon, attempts to assassinate 

Wellington, 273 
Caparo, Duke of, 356 
Carlisle, Countess of, ISi 
Carlisle, 6th Earl of, 27, 78, 121, 465, 

648 
Carlisle, 7th Earl of, 565, 618, 620, 

649 
Carnac, Mr., 670 
Carnac, Mrs., 422 
Carnarvon, Lord, 308, 318, 324, 348, 

381, 421 
Caroline, Queen, in the House of 

Commons, 123; the Commission 

on, 1 76-181 ; and Brougham, 177, 



199, 204, 29s, 296, 301-303, 316- 
319, 326, 329, 338, 341, 344, 353, 
355. 360, 365, 488 ; at Vauxhall, 
182, 184 ; the drawing-room, 187 ; 
and Grey, 193 ; at the Opera, 195, 
196 ; " carries everything before 
her," 196 ; declines increased 
allowance voted by Parliament, 
199, 204 ; the thanksgiving at St. 
Paul's, 202 ; a divorce impossible, 
209 ; her intended return to Ken- 
sington Palace, 212, 253 ; is offered 
jif50,ooo to renounce title and 
live abroad, 295, 301, 302 ; her 
trial, 295, 303-342, 348 ; popular 
sympathy, 298, 299 ; her Solicitor- 
General, Denman, q.v. ; her name 
excluded from the Liturgy, 303, 
304, 306, 351, 352, 354; Grey's 
and Lambton's interview with, 349 ; 
Brougham testifies to his belief in 
her innocence, 353, 355 ; proposed 
subscription for, 357 ; buys Cam- 
bridge House, {bid. ; excluded from 
the Coronation, 358, 360 ; proposed 
visit to the North, 361, 362; her 
death and funeral, 363-368 ; Lord 
Bath on, 415 

Carrington, Lord, 99, ill, 214 

Cartwright, General, 150 

Cartwright, John, the " Father of 
Reform," 202 

Casimir, M,, 568 

Castlereagh, Viscountess, 385' 

Castlereagh, Viscount, loses Co. Down 
on seeking re-election as Pitt's War 
Minister, 43, 63 ; quarrel and duel 
with Canning, 93, 96-98, 106, 108, 
639 ; Grey on, 107 ; his claims on 
the House of Commons, 122 ; the 
Walcheren Expedition, 123, 124 ; 
ministerial changes, 157, 165 ; 
Foreign Secretary, 175 ; "he can- 
not but be in a scrape," 185 ; Ward 
on, 189; increase of Princess of 
Wales' allowance, 198, 200, 201 ; 
red hot on war with France, 214 ; 
Brougham's speech on Treaty of 
Paris, 250 ; " appealing to pos- 
terity," 262 ; his supposed influence 
over Prince Leopold, 266 ; Lady 
Holland on, 266 ; Creevey on, 
287, 352 ; the King's message 
about the Queen, 303 ; " smiling 
as usual," 306 ; roughly handled at 
Covent Garden, 338 ; a scene iu 
the House of Commons, 342 ; 
Tierney and Napoleon, 346 ; 



JLNDEX. 



685 



Dublin's applause, 372 ; replies to 
Brougham's motion for reduction 
of taxation, 375, 376 ; his suicide, 
380, 382-389 ; his successor 
Canning, 391, 405, 461 ; his key- 
note non-intervention, 394, 395 

Cathcart, Lord, 86, 281, 282 

Catholic Association, the, 535, 537 

Caton, Mr., of Philadelphia, 591 

Caton, Captain of an Indiaman, 
279 

Caton, Miss, 276, 279, 590 

Caulincourt, M., 190 

Cavendish, Charles (Baron Chesham), 
207 

Cavendish, Lord George, 100, iii, 
122, 265, 376, 430 ; nominal 
leader of the Whigs, 112, 247, 257 ; 
Bennet on, 257 

Cavendish, William, 126 

Caxton, 549 

Cazes, M. de (Decazes), 272, 346 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 505 

Chalmers, Dr., Professor of Moral 
Philosophy in St. Andrews, after- 
wards of Theology in Edinburgh, 

. 426 

Chaloner, 376 

Chalons, 422 

Chantrey, 664 

Charlemont, Lady, 147, 666 

Charlemont, Lord, 147, 148, 150 

Charleroi, capture of, 223, 229 

Charles X., 595, 657 

Charleville, Lord, 654 

Charlotte of Wales, Princess, the 
Prince Regent's treatment of, 176, 
178-180, 182 ; Brougham's advice 
to, 198 ; her illness, 184, 207 ; 
marriage, 258, 259 ; death, 266, 
268, 667 

Cliarlotte, Queen, 184, 194, 197, 
281, 284 

Chateaubriand, 214 

Chatham, Earl of, 85, 660 ; the 
Walcheren Expedition, 95-97, 107, 
129-131, 133 

Chesham, Charles, Lord, 207 

Chesterfield, Countess of (Hon, 
Aime Forester), 556 

Chesterfield, Earl of, 541, 556 

Chichester, Earl of, 113 

Chifnay, Mr., 552 

Chimay, Prince de, 7 

Cholmondeley, Lady Charlotte (after- 
wards Seymour), 266 

Cholmondeley, Marchioness of, 196 

Cholmondeley, Marquess of, 320 



Church of England, Hume's attack 
on, 408 

Churchill, Lady, 585 

Churchill, Lord, 509 

Cintra Convention, 89, 93 

Civil List Bill, 1831 . .560 

Civil Offices Pensions Act, 18 17 
376 

Clanricarde, ist Marquess of, 530 

Clanwilliam, Earl of, 402 

Clare Election, 535 

Clare, Lady, 47, 49 

Clare, Lord, 371, 389, 406, 540 

Clarendon, Earl of, Queen Caroline's 
executor, 367 

Clarke, Mr., 112 

Clarke, Mrs. Mary Anne, and the 
Duke of York, 97, 112, 113, 115, 
193. 310, 344, 620 

Clavering, General, 61 

Cleveland, Duchess of, Lady Darling- 
ton (Mrs. Russell alias Funnereau), 
184, 428, 431, 451, 473, 474, 507, 
550, 585 ; and Mrs. Taylor, 432 ; 
Creevey on, 434 

Cleveland, . ist Duke of, 3rd Lord 
DarUngton, " Niffy-Nafiy," 243, 
308, 451, 455, 472, 473, 491, 492, 
549-55 1» 572, 585 ; his marriage, 
184, 428 ; five seats to dispose of, 
432 ; raves about Canning, 458 ; 
Grey and, 464 ; his Winchelsea 
seat, 507 ; Wellington and, 495 

Cleveland, Lord William Powlett, 
3rd Duke of, 472-474. 543 

Clifden, 2nd Viscount, 559 

Clifden, 3rd Viscount, 559 

Clifford, Charlotte, Baroness (after- 
wards Duchess of Devonshire), 264 

Clifford, Lieutenant (Lord ?), 264 

Clifford, Lord de, 308, 336 

Clifton, Lord, 184 

Clincial thermometer. Dr. Currie's, 2 

Clinton, Lord, 355 

Cloncurry, Lord, 536 

Clowes, Mrs., 60 

Cobbett, William, 89, 594 ; im- 
prisoned for libel, 133 ; his letter 
to Creevey, 134 ; "a foul-mouthed 
malignant dog," 334 ; on agri- 
cultural depression, 397 ; Life of 
Cantiitig, 436 ; his " blackguard 
language, 593 ; and Lord Radnor, 
620 

Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, 
89, 132, 133 

Cochrane, Admiral Lord (afterwards 
loth Earl of Dundonald), 12S ; 



686 



INDEX, 



tried for Stock Exchange conspiracy, 

202, 203 
Codrington, Admiral, 573 
Coercion Bill, 624, 627, 630, 636 
Coke, Miss, 378 

Coke, Sir Edward, Chief Justice, 453 
Coke, Thomas, of Holkham (created 

Earl of Leicester), 122, 297, 418, 

6,18, 636 ; Canning's " landed 

grandee," 108 ; marries Lady A. 

Keppel, 378 ; furious about Lady 

Mary Keppel's marriage, 439 ; 

"our worthy King Tom," 453; 

created Earl, 637 ; Creevey on, 

673 ; on Lady Holland, 675 
Coke, Thomas William, 2nd Earl of 

Leicester, 378, 418, 674 
Colborne, Sir John (afterwards Lord 

Seaton), Governor-General of 

Canada, 676 
Colchester, riot at Queen's funeral at, 

374 

Colchester, Lord. See Abbot, Charles 

Cole, Hon. Sir Lowry, commanded 
4th Division in Peninsular War, 
277, 283, 351 ; Governor of 
Mauritius, 354 

Cole, Lady Frances {fi/e Malmes- 
bury), 277-279 

Collier, Lady, 254 

Collingwood, Lord, Memoirs, 503 

Colvill, General, 239 

Commission on. Royal Navy, 33 ; 
Public Expenditure, 136 ; Queen 
Caroline, 176, 177, 181; Flogging, 
652^ 

Conde, Prince de, 225 

Congleton, Lord, 31, 164 

Congreve, Sir William, inventor of 
rockets, 147, 150 

Conroy, Mr., 674 

Consort, Prince, 394 

Conway, Field Marshal, 355 

Conyngham, Lady Elizabeth (Mar- 
chioness of Huntley), 333, 415, 438 

Conyngham, Lady Elizabeth Denison, 
1st Marchioness of, 229, 333, 499 ; 
George IV. 's relations with, 362, 
372, 373. 385> 387. 400> 4i9. 431. 
446, 447j 450, 462, 490; her 
portrait by Lawrence, 358 ; her 
friend Lady Glengall, 371 ; "shows 
but little in public" at Dublin, 
372j 373 ; her opposition Ball at 
the Opera House, 380 ; Duke of 
Sussex and his sisters, 390 ; at 
Ascot, 419; "a blow-up between 
Prinney and," 431 ; '* she hates 



Kingy," 438 ; her paramount in- 
fluence at Court, 445 
Conyngham, Lord, 320, 371, 401, 

402, 445, 621, 668 
Conyngham, Lord Albert Denison, 

400 
Cook, Captain, killed at Trafalgar, 

69 
Cooke, "Kangaroo," 451 
Copenhagen Expedition, 85, 86 
Copley, Maria (afterwards Lady 

Howick and Countess of Grey); 

373. 390, 637 ; her letters to 

Creevey, 401, 406 
Copley, Sir John (afterwards Lord 

Lyndhurst), 455, 456 
Copley, Sir Joseph, 648 
Cork, Edmund, 7th Earl of, ,56 
Cork, Lady, 56 

Corn Laws, 436, 442, 443, 500, 508- 
Cornwall, Mr., 474 
Cornwallis, Marchioness, i68| 
Corry, James, 511, 519, 523, 530 
Cotton, Sir Charles, 89 
Courier, 179 
Courtenay, Mr., 184 
Courvoisier, valet, murders his master. 

Lord William Russell, 4oi, 671 
Coutts, Mr., 209, 345, 350 
Coutts, Mrs. (afterwards Duchess of 

St, Albans), 462, 559 
Coyent Garden theatre, 97 
Coventry, George William, 8th Earl 

of, 56, QIO 
Coventry, Lady Mary Augusta (after- 
wards Holland), 610 
Cowley, Lady (Olivia de Ros), 546, 

579, 605, 662 
Cowley, Lord (Sir Henry Wellesley), 

218, ms, 662 

Cowper, Lady (afterwards Palmer- 
ston), 25s, 259, 471, 509, 568, 583, 
610, 649, 667 

Cowper, Lady Emily (Countess of 
Shaftesbury), 540 

Cowper, Lord, 82, 259, 313, 317, 318, 

336, 348, 351. 381, 421, 430, 471,- 

509, 568, 572, 583 
Cox and Greenwood, 584 
Cradock, Colonel, 281, 438, 648 
Crampton, Surgeon - General, 511, 

523 
Craufurd, Madame, 630 
Craven, Countess of, 652 
Craven, Earl of, 247, 554: 
Craven, Hon. Berkeley, 296, 330,, 

355, 356, 481 
Craven, Hon. Keppel, 309, 311, 356 



JNDEX. 



6^7 



Craven, Hon. Maria. Sec Sefton, 
Lady 

Craven, Lady Louisa (afterwards 
Johnstone, then Oswald), 653 

Craven, Mrs., 662 

Creevey, Miss, 485, 652 

Creevey, jNlrs. (formerly Mrs. Ord), 
12, 18, 22, 108, 120, 148-150 ; at 
Brighton, 47-50 ; and Sheridan, 
52 ; Lord Thurlow, 60 ; at Brussels, 
205-272 ; her death, 275, 295 ; 
letters — from Earl Grey, i ; from 
Sheridan, 39 ; to Creevey, 65-73, 
80 ; from Mrs. Fitzherbert, 69 ; to 
Miss Ord, 82, 84 ; from Creevey, 
121-132, 136-143, 145, 156-173, 
195 ; from Lady Holland, 151, 184, 
189, 205, 246, 254, 265 

Crewe, Lord, 378 

Crockford's, 493 

Croker, J. W., on Brougham, 365 ; 
his dispute with Hume, 377 ; his 
article in Quartc7-ly Revieiv on 
O'Meara's A Voice Jrom St. Helena, 
407 ; " the three C's," 436 ; his 
account of Liverpool's illness, 447 ; 
a P.C., 502 ; a slender chance of 
being M.P. again, 563 

Croker Papers, 31, 365, 373, 553 

Cromwell, Oliver, 513 

Cross, Mr., K.C., 467 

Cumberland, Duchess of (Princess 
Frederica of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, 
widow, firstly, of Prince Frederick 
of Prussia, and secondly, of Prince 
Frederick William of Salmo-Braun- 
fels), 205 

Cumberland, Duke of, 146, 148-150, 
205, 276, 298, 339, 53S, 539, 552, 
587, 664 

Cumberland Hussars, at Waterloo, 
148, 232, 234 

Curran, J- P., Irish Master of the 
Rolls, 61, 107 

Currency question, the, 436, 439 

Currie, Dr. J., of Liverpool, his clini- 
cal thermometer, 2 ; his letters to 
Creevey, 2, 12, 30; from Creevey, 
4, 9, II-16, 19, 24, 27, 33, 78, 80 

Cuthbert, Lady Fanny, 402 



D 



Dacre, Thomas, 20th Lord, 337, 437, 

565, 620 
Dacre, Thomas, 22nd Lord, 653 
Daly, Mr., 12S 



Darner, Mrs. {nee Conway), 355, 356, 
661 

Danglas, Boissy, 7 

Danton, 7 

D'Aremberg, Due, 225 

D'Aremberg, Prince, 509 

D'Arenberg, Prince, 413 

Darlington, Lady. See Cleveland, 
Duchess of 

Darlington, Lord. Sec Cleveland, 
Duke of 

Darnley, Lord, 283, 329, 421 

Dartmouth, Earl of, 337 

Davenport, M.P. for Cheshire, 376 

Davie, Sir John, 8th baronet of 
Creedy, Devon, 407 

Dawson, Mr., 509 

Dawson-Damer, Mrs., 662 

Dawson-Damer, Rt. Hon. G., 646, 
662 

Day, Mr., 66, 68 

Decazes, M., 272, 346 

Delaney, General, 34, 247 

Delawarr, Lord, 337 

Denison of Denbies, William Joseph, 
366, 385, 447, 449, 451, 462, 490 

Denman, Lord Chief Justice, 297, 
550, 659, 673 ; Queen's Solicitor- 
General in her trial, 303, 304, 308, 
310, 311, 317, 326, 328, 331, 
333-335. 341, 365 ; his reception 
by the populace, 360 ; present at 
the Queen's death, 363 

Denmark, Princess of, 272 

Dent, " Dog," 400 

Derbv, James Stanley, 4th Earl of^ 
38 

Derby, Edward, 12th Earl of, 27, 
29, 100, 112, 114, 120, 128, 130, 
260, 305, 308, 318, 326, 326, 331, 
379, 399, 418, 425, 436, 545 ; letter 
to Creevey, 382 ; the railway 
movement, 429 ; and William IV,, 
56S 

Derby, Edward Smith, 13th Earl of, 
171-173, 418, 430 

Derby, Edward, 14th Earl of, 382, 
418, 470, 545, 568, 611, 624, 626, 
637, 639, 641, 651 ; Secretary for 
Ireland, 561, 607 ; and Durham, 
606; M.P. for Cheshire, 597; 
resigns, 615, 618; split between 
Russell and, 615, 616 

Derby, Eliza Farren, Countess of 
(wife of I2th Earl), 112, 305, 318, 
326, 329, 331, 399, 413, 417, 425 

Derby, Countess of (wife of 13th 
Earl), 171-173 



688 



INDEX. 



d'Erlon, Marshal, at Waterloo, 238, 
242 

Devereux, Mr., 521 

Devonshire, Charlotte, Baroness Clif- 
ford, Duchess of (wife of 4th Duke), 
184 

Devonshire, Lady Georgiana Spencer, 
Duchess of (ist wife of 5th Duke), 

Devonshire, Lady Elizabeth Foster, 
Duchess of {2nd wife of 5th Duke), 
84, 254 

Devonshire, William, 4th Duke of, 
184 

Devonshire, William, 5th Duke of, 
SI, 84, 1 20, 182, 184 

Devonshire, William Spencer, 6th 
Duke of, 184, 257, 583, 64s, 652 ; 
declares for Reform, 348 j proposed 
subscription for Queen Caroline, 
354 ; protest against Creevey's ex- 
clusion from office, 457 ; his coach 
at Doncaster races, 47 ij 

Digby, Admiral Sir Henry, 378, 453 

Digby, Aurora (Lady EUenborough), 
422 

Digby, Lady (Viscountess Andover), 
378, 454 

Dillon, Lord, 597 

Dillon, Miss, 190 

Dimont, Queen Caroline's femme de 
chambre, 314, 315, 335 

Dino, Madame de, 559, 578, 583, 
591. S9S> 604, 611-613, 621, 644 

Dinorben, Lady, 80 

Dinorben, Lord, 80, 412 

Dogherty, Irish Solicitor-General, 
530 

Donne, W. Bodham, editor of Cor- 
respondence of George III. witk 
LofS North, 660 

Donoughmore, 1st Earl of, 48, 138, 
317, 326, 328, 519. 531 ; his recol- 
lections of Ireland, 520-522 

Dorchester, Lord, 63 

d'Orleans, Due, 244, 595, 6ll, 612 

Dorneburg, General, Commander of 
Mons garrison, 221, 222 

D'Orsay, Count, 596, 630 

Dorset, Duchess of, 67 

d'Otranto, Joseph Fouche, Due, 7, 
214 

Douglas-Hamilton, Lady Charlotte 
(Duchess of Somerset), 406 

Douro, Lord, 55 1 

Douro, Wellington's passage of the, 
101-105, 109 

Dover, Lord, 599 



Downshire, Marchioness of, 49, 62, 

65, 66, 68, 73, 147 
Downshire, Marquess of, 128, 421 
Downton borough, Wilts, Creevey 

and James Brouglxam returned for, 

571 
Drury Lane theatre, and Whitbread, 

241 
Dublin, 42 ; Creevey's visit to, 510, 

529 

Du Cane, 572 

Ducie, Lord, 572 

Dudley, John William Ward, 1st 
Earl of. III, 112, 140, 151, 162, 
174, 262, 410, 442, 494, 500, 501, 
547, 585. 597 ; and Jekyll, 189 ; 
Rogers, ihedeadpoet, 255 ; Foreign 
Secretary, 176 ; "a Ward in 
Chancery," 483 

Duff, Captain, killed at Trafalgar, 
69 

Dufferin, Lady (nee Sheridan), 39 

Duncannon, Viscountess (Lady Maria 
Fane), 415, 513-5 ^S, 5 18, 524 

Duncannon, Viscount {4th Earl of 
Bessborough), 351, 358, 565, 596; 
a conversation between Tierney 
and, 327 ; Mrs. Murphy's letter, 
452; "now counts noses on the 
other side," 458 ; his Bessborough 
estates, 513-518, 524 ; Durham and 
Lady Jersey, 561 ; the Reform Bill 
draft, 606 ; and Anglesey's views 
on Ireland, 607 ; Home Secretary, 
627 

Duncombe, Tom, 420, 509, 630, 632 

Dundas, Henry. See Melville, Vis- 
count 

Dundas, Lord, 46, 158, 573 

Dundas, Mrs. {nee Williamson), 423 

Dundas, Tom, 338, 376, 423, 521 

Dundass, a Richmond surgeon, 28 

Dundonald, Admiral Lord Cochrane, 
loth Earl of, 128 ; tried for Stock 
Exchange conspiracy, 203 

Dunfermline, Lord. &i?Abercromby, 
Hon. James 

Dunmore, 4 th Earl of, 583 

Dunning, Mr., 162 

Du Paquier, Louis XVIII. 's valet, 
368 

Durham, Countess of (Lady Louisa 
Grey), 349, 352, 357, 425, 434, 
437, 559, 608 

Durham, John George Lambton, ist 
Earl of ("King Jog"), 265, 332, 
335, 342, 351-354, 357, 374, 376, 
381, 398, 413, 422-424, 433, 489, 



INDEX. 



689 



. 496, 538, 543. 559, 561, 565, 571, 
594, 633, 636, 647, 651 ; interview 
with Queen Caroline, 349 ; Miss 
Copley on, 373 ; a victim of temper, 
39^5 399 ; letter to Creevey, 396 ; 
a scene with Creevey, 433, 434 ; 
his debts, 462 ; Brougham's perfidy, 
468 ; his peerage — an appeal to 
Brougham, 484; and Reform, 572, 
589, 606, 634 ; peer-making, 583 ; 
the Times' attack on Grey, 599, 
636 ; scene between Grey and, 607 ; 
furious for dissolution, 608 ; his 
exclusion from Grey's cabinet, 619 ; 
a quarrel with Brougham, 631 ; hiS' 
Glasgow dinner, 639 ; accepts the 
Canada mission, 674, 676 ; inter- 
view with Queen Adelaide, 677 

Durham, Mrs., Creevey's landlady, 
565, 571, 602, 623 

Duval, Justice, 327 

Duvernay, the opera dancer, 615 



E 



East India Compan}', ?>Z, 120, 130, 

134, 143, 291, 669 
East Retford, disfranchised, 500 
Eaton, Mr. and Mrs., 12 
Ebrington, Viscount, 652 
Eckersley, Mr., 279 
Eden, Hon. George (afterwards 2nd 

Lord Auckland), 114, 120, 344, 

437j 456 

Eden, Sir William, 449 

Edinburgh mail, the, 633 

Edinburgh Review, 30, 119, 186, 205, 
248, 381, 441, 492, 509, 631 

Edwardes, Mr,, 414 

Edwards, box -keeper of Drury Lane 
theatre, Sheridan's valet, 59 

Egremont, Earl of, 337, 506 

Egypt, Napoleon's claims on, 14 

Eldon, Earl of, 109, 119, 136, 214, 
257, 261, 420, 477, 642 ; and 
George IV., 157, 159, 298 ; Roman 
Catholic question, 166, 454 ; jealous 
of Mrs. Leach, 258 ; the Pains and 
Penalties Bill, 308, 314, 317, 325, 
329. 333, 335 ; some sharp words 
with Liverpool, 323, 339 ; Grey's 
palaver with, 337 ; Canning and, 
385, 410; "the most noble of all 
the beasts," 391 ; Lord Ports- 
mouth's case, 405 ; resigns, 437, 

. 455 ; the patronage question, 445 ; 
*' lock the door on Eldon and Co.," 



456, 457, 45.9 ; Brougham and, 463, 

566; "whining at his unhappy 

fate," 494 
Elizabeth, Princess, 3rd daughter of 

George III., wife of Erederick, 

Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, 339 
EUenborough, Lady {tiie Digby), 422 
Ellenborough, Lord, 40, 75, l8l, 

421, 422, 539 
Ellesmere, Earl of (Lord F. Leveson), 

185, 401, 406, 530 
Ellice, General, 609 
Ellice, Lady Hannah {iiee Grey), 

615 

Ellice of Invergarry, Edward, 615, 
652 

Ellice of Invergarry, Mrs. Edward 
{nee Balfour), 615, 652 

Ellice of Invergarry, Mrs. Edward 
(previously Mrs. A. Speirs), 615 

Ellice, Rt. Hon, Edward (" Bear "), 
416, 435, 449, 457, 572, 585, 592, 
599, 610, 615, 618, 670, 673, 674, 
678 ; in Paris with Madame de 
Lieven and Louis Philippe, 651 

Elliot, Mr., 21, 214 

Ellis, Agar, 559 

Ellis, Charles R.ose (Earl of Seaford), 

97, 151 

Elvas, 88 

Ely, flogging of mutinous militiamen 

at, 33 
England, at war with France, 10 ; 

and the independence of Greece, 

475 
Enniskillen, Earl of, 277, 323, 336, 

337- 
Entertaining Knowledge, Library of, 

548 

Erroll, Lord and Lady, 523 

Erskine, Captain, 234 

Erskine, Lord, 3, 75, iig, 181, 209, 
308, 318, 348 ; on Russia's offer of 
mediation, 15 ; z'. Windham, 19 ; 
letter to Creevey, 136 ; and Alex- 
ander L, 19s ; K.T., 211 ; "The 
Green Man and Still," 212 ; "the 
most beautiful speech possible," 
317 ; a fainting fit, 335 ; greatly 
applauded, 338 ; on Francis and 
Junius, 350 ; " very old and for- 
lorn," 410 

Essex, Countess of (Catherine 
Stephens), 628 

Essex, Earl of, 99, ill, 296, 380, 
496, 572, 611, 612, 614, 627, 628, 
648, 655, 663, 671, 672 ; his letters 
to Creevey, 632, 665 



690 



INDEX. 



Esterhazy, Prince, 438, 555, 578, 604, 

60s, 609 
Esterhazy, Princess, 541 



Fagal, General, 220, 222, 286 
Fane, John, M.P. for Oxfordshire, 

376 
Fane, Lady Maria (Lady Duncannon), 

513-515 
Fawkes, Mr., 397 
Featherstone, Sir H,, 295 
Felice, Madame, 356 
Fellowes, Rev., the Queen's chaplain, 

359 

Ferdinand of Wurtemberg, Prince, 69 

Ferdinand VII. of Spain, 248, 395, 
406, 432 

Fergus, Provost of Kirkcaldy, 427 

Ferguson, Cutlar, Judge Advocate- 
General, 672 

Ferguson, Major-General R. C, 105, 
109, 122, 158, 212, 337, 344, 376, 
378, 384, 413, 449, 490, 493, 498, 

,' 618 ; his motion for production of 
Milan Commission, 312 ; the 
railway movement, 429 

Ferguson, Miss, 345 

Ferguson, Mrs., 572 

Ferguson of Raith, General Sir 
Ronald, 387, 389, 426 

Ferguson, Robert, 389 

Fesch, Cardinal, 381 

Fife, Lord, 244 

Filanqueri, 88 

Firma9on, Madame de, 438 

Fitzallen, Lord, 656 

FitzClarence, Lady Frederick (Lady 
Augusta Boyle, 642 

FitzClarence, Lord Frederick, 425, 
642, 677 

FitzClarence, Miss, 566 

Fitzgerald, " Fighting," 470 

Fitzgerald, Hon. W. Vesey (after- 
wards Lord), 392, 489, 502, 509, 

.535 
Fitzgerald, Lady Cecilia. See Foley, 

Lady 
Fitzgerald, Lady Olivia (afterwards 

Kinnaird), 273, 444 
Fitzhardinge, Admiral Sir Maurice 
, Frederick Berkeley, Lord, 147, 

.527, 530 
.Fitzharris, Lord, 33 
Fitzherbert, Mrs., 4, 47-50, 65-72, 



82, 138, 139, 163, 176, 179, 554, 

661, 662 
Fitzpatrick, General Richard, 13, 94^ 

121, 157, 183 
Fitzroy, Lady Mary (nee Gordon^ 

Lennox), 527 
Fitzroy, Lord Henry, 164 
Fitzroy, Sir Charles, 527 
Fitzwilliam, Countess of, 332 
Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl of, 27, 29, Si,. 

109, im, 263, 303, 308, 313, 332, 

336, 348, 3S3» 357, 433. 45 1, 477» 
497 ; proposed subscription for 
Queen Caroline, 354 ; his coach 
at Doncaster, 462 ; Madame de 
Eleven's compliments, 472 ; and 
Brougham, 475 

Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl of. See Milton, 
Viscount 

Flahault, General de, 250, 613 

Flahault, Madame de (afterwards de 
Souza), 251, 326 

Fleury, Duchesse de, 480 

Flint, Sir Charles, 416 

Floridas, the, seized by U.S.A., 279 

Fludyer, Mr., 529 

Flynn, Captain, 323, 329 

Foley, Lady (Lady Cecilia Fitz- 
gerald), 444, 546, 551 

Foley, Lord, 296, 317, 331, 335, 338^ 
547, 551, 568, 572, 595, 67s 

Foljambe, Savile, 619 

Folkestone («^^Mildmay), Viscountess 
(Lady Radnor), 190, 272, 622, 661 

Folkestone, Viscount (afterwards 3rd 
Earl of Radnor), 125, 160, 213, 
257, 376, 591, 659 ; and Mrs. 
Clarke, 112, 115, 116, 620 ; letters 
to Creevey, 96, 190, 271; "will 
take his line," 347 ; Canning's 
tirade against, 410 ; Creevey and 
James Brougham returned for 
Down ton by favour of, 571 

Follett, Sir William, Solicitor-Gen- 
eral, 653 

Fonblanque, M., 49, 150, 654 

Fontenay, Comtesse de (afterwards 
de Tallien), 6, 7 

Foote, the actor, 327 

Forbes, Lord, 161, 520, 523 

Ford, Mrs., 628 

Fordyce, John, Receiver-General of 
Land Tax, Scotland, 34, 35 

Fordyce, Mrs. {nie Maxwell), 34 

Forester, Hon. Anne (Lady Chester- 
field), 556 

Forester, Hon. Isabella (Mrs. Geo. 
Anson), 556 



INDEX. 



691 



Forester, Lord, 556 

Forester, Mr., 184 

Forster, Mr., 16S 

Forsyth, Mr., 382 

Fortescue, George, 406 

Fortescue, Lady, 329 

Fortescue, Lord, 308, 329 

Foster, J., Chancellor of Exchequer, 
Ireland, 31 

Fouche, Joseph, Due d'Otranto, 7, 
214 

Fox, Charles, 497, 610, 652, 671, 
674 

Fox, Charles James, at Talleyrand's, 
5 ; "Liberty asleep in France, but 
<lead in England," 9 ; speech on 
Russia's offer of mediation, 16 ; his 
" palaver about a military com- 
mand for the Prince of Wales," 18 ; 
"a proscribed victim of fortune," 
20; Windham's enmity, 21 ; "de- 
votion to Fox," 22; alliance with 
•Pitt, 23, 27, 37 ; letter to Creevey, 
23-; speech on the St. Vincent en- 
quiry, 24 ; Sheridan's project, 25 ; 
George III. v., 26, 660 ; Prince of 
Wales's relations with, 27, 28, 31, 
46, 47, 82, 146 ; and Fordyce, 34, 
35 ; his conduct in the Athol 
iDUsiness, 37 ; Romilly's support, 
41 ; Graham Moore on, 78 ; his 
illness and death, 79, 80-84; the 
highest of " All the Talents," 84 ; 
Whitbread on, 92 ; Creevey on, 
143 ; Brougham compares Pitt and, 
172; his friend Fitzpatrick, 183; 
the Fox dinner at Newcastle, 187 ; 
his great influence, 290 ; proposed 
epitaph, 299, 3cxj ; at Lady Olivia 
Fitzgerald's wedding, 444 ; Grey, 
Grenville, and, 459, 461 

Fox Club, 348 

Fox, Henry (afterwards 4lh Lord 
Holland), 610 

Fox, Lady Mary, 610, 652, 674 

Fox, Mrs., 70, 300 

France, the king guillotined, i ; in 
1802 . . 4 ; war with England, 10 ; 
her aggressive policy, 14 ; Alex- 
tmder I.'s offer of mediation, 15 ; 
Austria, Prussia, and England z'., 
44 ; her Spanish South American 
colonies, 86-88 ; Cintra Conven- 
tion, 89 ; the Hundred Days, 
Waterloo, 213-238 ; and Greek 
independence, 475 

Franceschi, General (France), loi 

Francis I. of Austria, 99 



Francis, Lady, 350 

Francis, Sir Philip, 61, 112, 147, 149, 

150 ; Jiwiiis 1 350 
Franklin, John, 606 
Eraser, Dr., 68 
Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Hom- 

burg, 339 
Frederick of Prussia, Prince, 205 
Frederick William of Salmo-Braun- 

fels. Prince, 205 
Frederick William III., of Prussia, 

45, 187, 195, 196, 197 
Freeman, 631 
Freemantle, Rt, Hon. Sir William 

Henry, 127, 162, 214, 217, 272, 

282 
French, at the Douro, 101-104 
French, Lord, 521 
Frere, 657 



Galileo, 549 

Gal way, ist Viscount, 5(7 

Garth, Captain, 538, 539, 542 

Garth, General, 538, 542 

Gascoigne, General, I\I.P. for Liver- 
pool, 155, 169, 173, 253 ; his 
motion to reduce Ordnance Vote, 
607 

Gell, Sir William, 309, 311, 323, 330 

Genlis, Madame de, 438 

George II., 51, 339, 588 

George III., and Addington, 8 ; 
France's aggressive policy, 14 ; 
against Prince of Wales, 17 ; for 
Duke of York, 17, 107; "will 
never more exercise the Royal 
function," 25 ; v. Fox, 26, 28 ; his 
illness, 27, 28, 36, 65, 119, 135, 
142, 145, 146 ; and Pitt, 27 ; de- 
termined on a Tory Cabinet, 39 ; u. 
Roman Catholic Emancipation, 43, 
84 ; at Weymouth, 48, 63 ; has 
recourse to the Whigs, 74 ; " has 
not yet sent for Wardle," 97 ; 
Princess Amelia's illness and death, 
98, 13s ; his letter to Perceval, 99 ; 
Canning and Castlereagh, 106 ; his 
popularity, 113; "the Gentleman 
at the end of the Mall," 118, 132 ; 
the Walcheren Expedition, 131 ; 
the Princess Charlotte, 176 ; his 
death, 295, 296 ; Princess Eliza- 
beth's marriage, 339 ; shut up for 
10 years, 358 ; " Old Nobbs," 461 ; 
parting with Lord North, 588; 



692 



INDEX. 



Coke's violent speech against, 636 ; 
some correspondence with Lord 
North, 660 
George IV., 4, 46, 1 10, 257, 417, 
421, 432, 457, 459, 462, 550 ; pro- 
]X>sed substitution of Council for 
Viceroy in Ireland, 16 ; and George 
III., 17 ; a military command for, 
18 ; his attachment to the old no- 
bility, 26; "a Regency must be 
resorted to, " 27 ; and Fox, 27, 28, 
46, 47, 82, 146 ; a kind of Cabinet, 
31 ; invites Creevey to dinner, 32 ; 
and the Whigs, 39, 62, 76, 177, 
178 ; Romilly, 40 ; Creevey's ac- 
count of, 46-51,57-59, 62, 63 ; and 
Sheridan, 57, 58 ; Warren Hast- 
ings, 59 ; and the Duke of York, 
63, 113, 140, 209, 305; "had got 
more wine than usual," 65 ; Mrs. 
Creevey on, 65-73, I47~I49 J the 
air-gun, 66; Mrs. Fitzherbert, 66, 
82, 139 ; his grief at Nelson's 
death, 70 ; Rev. W. Price's letter 
to, 76 ; Tufnelland Colchester, 81 ; 
his threat to Perceval, III ; ap- 
pointed Regent — changed attitude 
towards Ministers, 135-137, 142, 
144, 145, 153 ; Bank Note Bill, 
145 ; at Brighton, 146-140 ; Wel- 
lington and the Peninsular War, 
147, 149 ; Viotti, the violinist, 
148 ; on Sir Willoughby Gordon, 
150, 151 ; end of Creevey's inti- 
macy with, 151 ; the Dandy ball 
incident, 152 ; reconstructs the 
Cabinet, 153-163 ; Grey and Gren- 
ville, 153, 157 ; sends for Wel- 
]esley, 156 ; for Moira, 158, 160, 
164, 165 ; scandalous treatment of 
Princess of Wales, 176-188, 193, 
201, 203, 212, 253 ; Brougham's 
support of the Princess, 177, 178- 
183 ; "our magnanimous regent," 
187 ; Whitbread on, 191 ; visit of 
foreign royalties, 187-197 ; Princess 
Charlotte's engagement, 197 ; ill, 
207, 259, 266, 297, 446, 447, 451, 
488; M. A. Taylor, 211, 458; for 
war with France, 214 ; Bennet on, 
241 ; and Ossulston, 244 ; his nick- 
name for Dean Legge of Windsor, 
247 ; " has left off his stays," 263 ; 
Duke of Kent on, 268 ; Folkestone 
on, 272 ; Wellington on, 279 ; 
Brougham on, 294; succeeds to 

• throne, 295 ; hostility to, 299 ; ex- 

• eludes Queen's name from Liturgy, 



302-304 ; Sam Spring, 310 ; the 
chambermaid's evidence, 313; 
wants to go to Hanover, 314; 
divorce clause abandoned, 319 j 
his intended changes, 320 ; Hutch- 
inson and Donoughmore at Windsor 
with, 326, 328 ; " greatly deceived," 
333 ; his coronation, 343 ; insults- 
Prince Leopold, 349, 350; "has 
slept none," 358 ; his unpopularity, 
360 ; his Knights of the Thistle, 
361, 369 ; squabbles with his Min- 
isters, 362 ; Lady Jersey's relations 
with, 367 ; determined to marry 
again, 370 ; the print of his sacred 
feet, 371; in Ireland, 372, 373; 
Lady Conyngham's opposition ball, 
380 ; Castlereagh's death, 385 ; in 
Edinburgh, 387 ; his sisters and 
Lady Conyngham, 390; and the 
Whigs, 398, 460 ; Lord Albert D. 
Conyngham, 400 ; the reference in 
his speech to Spain, 403, 404 ; Lord 
Bath's blue ribbon, 415 ; at Ascot 
races, 419, 430 ; "getting very old 
and cross, " 425 ; quarrel with Lady 
Conyngham, 431, 438 ; distrusts 
Canning, 445 ; the Roman Catholic 
question, 450, 540, 542 ; instructs 
Canning to form a ministry, 452, 
453. 455; Canning's death, 464, 
467 ; Snip Robinson, Premier, 465, 
484; his "good friend Welling- 
ton," 466, 501 ; Herries, Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer, 470; and 
Brougham, 471, 488 ; on Navarino, 
482 ; and Lady Conyngham, 490 ; 
" ci'ept into town," 497 ; Bucking- 
ham Palace, 498 ; and Ferguson, 
499 ; Bishop of Winchester's re- 
proof, ibid. ; on Creevey, 502 ; 
reports about his health, 529 j 
Captain Garth's case, 538 ; v. the 
Pope, 539 ; his horse "the Colonel," 
541, 552 ; on the Wellington -Win- 
chilsea duel, 542 ; and Grey, 543 ; 
his last illness and death, 552, 553, 
667 ; the Ordnance Department 
tents, 575 ; preserved all Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert's letters, 662 ; Sir John Lade 
and, 677 

Gerard, General, 544 

Gerobtzoff, Madame, 57, 73 

Gibbon, Edward, 599 

Gibbs, 132 

Gifford, Countess of, B9 

Gifford, Sir Robert (afterwards Lord)} 
437 



INDEX* 



693 



Giles, Mr., M.P., 90, in 

Gillespie, Rev,, 320 

Gilray, 371 

Gladstone, Eart., Sir John, 120, 169, 
211, 253 

Gladstone, W. E., 253 

Glasgow, 4tli Earl of, 642 

Glenelg, Lord, 655, 668, 676, 677 

Glengall, Lady, 371, 380, 402, 449 

Glengall, Lord, 449 

Glenlyon, Lord, 499 

Gloucester, Duchess of, 333, 349, 539, 
604 

Gloucester, Duke of ("Slice"), 179, 
184, 193, 308, 332, 333, 413, 617 ; 
declares himself a Radical, 348, 349 ; 
a proverbial bore, 351 ; a scene 
between Wellington and, 409 j 
dangerously ill, 641 

Goderich, J. Robinson, Viscount, 
Premier, 439, 462, 465, 470, 475, 
496 ; " will cry himself out of 
office," 471; "a minister po?fr 
rire," 477; resigns, 483, 486; in 
favour of new peers, 583 

Goderich, Lady, 647 

Goldsmith, Lewis, 666 

Goodall, Provost of Eton, 605 

Goodwood, 504 

Gordon, Colonel Sir Willoughby, 
Secretary to Commander-in-Chief, 
49» 1505 332 ; British Minister at 
Troppau, 346 

Gordon, 4th Duke of, 168 

Gordon, Hon. Sir Alexander, 173, 

319 

Gordon, James, 319 

Gordon, Jane, Duchess of, 34, 16S 

Gordon, Mr., 596 

Gore, Charles, 671, 674 

Gosford, 3rd Earl of, 533 

Goulbourn, Henry, Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, 554, 644 

Gower, Lord (afterwards 2nd Duke of 
Sutherland), 389, 390 

Grafton, Duke of, 168, 308, 421, 475 

Graham, Rt. Hon. Sir James, First 
Lord of the Admiralty, 576, 647 ; 
the Reform Bill draft, 606 ; resigns 
office on Irish Church Bill, 615, 
61S; "canting," 616; Grey com- 
plains bitterly of, 624 

Grammont, Antoine, Due de, 649 

Granard, 2nd Earl of, 161 

Granard, 6th Earl of, 161 

Grant, Rt. Hon. Charles, Lord 
Glenelg, President of the Board of 
Control, 5or, 555, 576, 611, 638 



Grant, Robert, Governor of Bombay, 

576 
Grantham, Lord, 336 
Granville, Countess, 184, 254, 402, 

438, 648 
Granville, Earl, 216, 255, 322, 648 
Grattan, 114, 121, 216, 228, 517, 520, 

521, 523, 525 
Great Northern Railway, 653 
Greathed, Mr., 230 
Greece v. Turkey, 475 
Greenwood, 34, 584 
Gregory, Under Secretary for Ireland, 

519 

Grenfell, Charles, 568, 594, 632, 654 

Grenfell, Pascoe, 560 

Grenville, C, 509 

Grenville, Lord, 4, 114, 121, 142, 
144, 146, 158, 164-166, 181 ; leader 
of the Old Whigs, 3, 21 ; for Fox, 

28, 461 ; V. Pitt, 28 ; forms a coali- 
tion Cabinet, "All the Talents," 
75, 459 ; resigns on Roman Catholic 
question, 84 ; the extreme members 
of the Opposition, 87 ; the anti-war 
party's rage, 93, 94 ; Ministers' 
offers to, 106, 1 10 ; and Brougham, 
119 ; Tierney, 127 ; Wellesley, 129, 
130 ; his offer to Whitbread, 137 ; 
refuses to reinstate Duke of York as 
Commander-in-Chief, 140 ; declines 
office under Prince Regent, 153 ; 
Prince Regent on, 157 ; against 
war, 162 ; called by Brougham 
"Bogey," 179, 216; and" Snoutch," 
247 ; Alexander Land, 195 ; Grey's 
firmness, 214; called "the Stale" 
by Bennet, 217 ; supports Pains and 
Penalties Bill, 336 ; Grey and 
Whitbread, 460 

Grenville, Tom, 4, 21, 28, 255 

Gresley, Lady Sophia, 423 

Gresley, Sir Roger, 423 

Greville, Charles Cavendish Fulke, 
Clerk of the Council ("Punch"), 
401, 421, 484, 511, 556, 565, 568, 
575. 578, 583, 603, 654, 656, 672 

Greville, Lady Charlotte, 215, 225- 
227, 278, 279, 289, 314, 390, 502, 

Greville Memoirs, 553, 557 

Grey, 1st Earl, 196, 615 

Girey, Charles, 2nd Earl, 13, 23, 27, 

29, 30, 47. 87, 94, 108, no, 120, 
128, 130, 137, 142-144. 154, 158, 
159, 166, 173, 192, 217, 242, 243, 
256, 265, 308, 318, 319, 333, 348, 
351, 352, 357. 377> 379. 399, 421, 



694 



INDEX. 



423, 42s, 458, 466, 484, 496, 543, 
552, 565, 571. 576, 602, 610, 626, 
649, 651, 663 ; his letter to Mrs. 
Ord (Creevey) on execution of 
Louis XVI., I ; the Prince of Wales 
and Fox, 26 ; commission on Army 
abuses, 34 ; on continental confed- 
eracies, 44 ; Prince of Wales on, 
72, 157, 164; the reports of Pitt's 
illness, 80 ; one of his best speeches, 
81 ; Ministers' offers to, 106, I09, 
163, 165 ; the Holland campaign, 
107, 121-123, 129, 162; and Whit- 
bread, III, 139, 183; and Pon- 
sonby, 1 1 7 ; his speech against 
Wellington, 123 ; Tierney's influ- 
ence, 124-126 ; a job by Bishop 
Mansel's brother, 129 ; on Creevey, 
139 ; declines to reinstate Duke of 
York as Commander-in-Chief, 140 ; 
" will be passed over," 146 ; refuses 
office under Prince Regent, 153 ; 
and Brougham, 174, 193. 253. 47i. 
475, 482, 491, 526, 561, 562, 627, 
629, 631, 634, et seq. ; semi-pacific, 
179 ; the Fox dinner at Newcastle, 
187 ; and Alexander I., 195 ; and 
Napoleon, 196, 240 ; and Grenville, 
214, 247 ; on the Divorce question, 
259 ; spies and informers exposed 
by, 263 ; Wellington on, 287, 463 ; 
Pains and Penalties Bill, 299, 310, 
313. 317, 325. 326, 329. 331. 332. 
334, 336. 337, 349 ; proposed 
epitaph for Fox, 300 ; on the 
-Queen's letter to the King, 306 ; 
Francis and Junius. 350 ; Whit- 
bread, Canning and, 460 ; his son 
and Lord Darlington, 464 ; the 
Old Whig Guard represented by, 
472 ; on Lady Londonderry's dress, 
474 ; and the Malignants, 477 ; on 
the Turkish scrape, 481, 482 ; his 
speculations on the new Govern- 
ment after Goderich's resignation, 
483 ; on Wellington's Cabinet, 486, 
487, 493; his new "WeUington" 
coat, 497 ; and Duke of Sussex, 
dbid. ; his panegyric on Peel, 538 ; 
and Roman Catholic Emancipation, 
541 ; and Rosslyn as Privy Seal, 
544 ; Premier, appoints Creevey 
Treasurer of Ordnance, 557 ; Wil- 
liam IV. and, 558, 573, 588, 616, 
618, 628 ; and Lord Durham, 559, 
574, 607, 619, 633 ; the Pension 
List, 560 ; the Times' attacks on, 
561, 562, 599 ; on Stanley, 561 ; his 



advice to Sir John Shelley, 564 
dismissal of Seymour and Meynell 
from the King's household, 567 
his appeal for a dissolution, 569 
571 ; reduction of Creevey's salary 
570 ; K.G., 574 ; down with influ 
enza, 575 ; the Reform Bill, 578 
579, 589, 606 ; insists on Lord Hill 
voting against Wellington, 582 ; the 
proposed peer-making, 583, 585, 
586 ; withdraws his resignation, 
586, 587 ; Creevey's retirement, 
591 ; Stanley's obstinacy about 
Irish tithes, 594 ; whist at Windsor 
Castle, 604 ; Palmerston's intimacy 
with Lady Jersey, 611 ; his change 
of tone towards Talleyrand, ibid. ; 
and J. Parkes, 613 ; Creevey's 
heartvvhole devotion to, 614 ; 
Creevey's forecast, 621 ; appoints 
Creevey to the Greenwich Hospital 
estates, 623 ; complains of Stanley 
and Graham, 624 ; resigns, 624 ; 
his farewell speech, 625 ; his passion 
for dancing, ibid. ; Essex and, 632 ; 
in retirement, 634-643 ; O'Con- 
nell's abuse of, 648 ; Queen Vic- 
toria's voice and speech, 665 ; 
letters to Creevey, 45, 74, 467, 
475, 481, 486 
Grey, 3rd Earl. See Howick, Lord 
Grey, Countess, 80, 82, 91, 163, 497, 

526, 552, 557. 559, 561, 567. 585. 
590, 596, 604, 605, 609, 613, 615, 
618, 625, 627, 629, 632, 634, 636, 
637, 648 

Grey, Frederick, 634 

Grey, General Charles, 80, 585, 604 

Grey, Harry, 69, 634, 670 

Grey, Lady Elizabeth, 423, 425, 648 

Grey, Lady Georgiana, 585, 604, 634, 
648, 665 

Grey, Lady Hannah (afterwards Bet- 
tesworth, then EUice), 615 

Grey, Lady Louisa (afterwards Dur- 
ham), 265, 349, 352, 357, 425, 434, 
437, 618 

Grey, Mrs., 128, 433, 482 

Grey of Morrick, Colonel, 636 

Griffiths, Lieut. (Guards), wounded at 
Waterloo, 575 

Gronow, Captain, 615 

Grosvenor, Bob, 423, 442, 470 

Grosvenor, Earl (afterwards 2nd Mar- 
quess of Westminster), 602 

Grosvenor, General, 399 

Grouchy, Marechal, 2'67 

Guiche, Madame de, 630 



INDEX. 



695 



Guilford, Earl of, 31, 257, 322, 588, 

660 
Gully, John, prize-fighter, 64, 499, 

552 
Garwood, Welhtigton Despatches, 656, 

657 
Gwydyr, Dowager Lady (Lady Wil- 

loughby d'Eresby), 311 
Gwydyr, Lord, 446 



n 



Habeas Corpus, 263 

Hadley, Lord, 76 

Halford, Sir Henry, 130, 576, 585, 

604 
Halket, General, 222 
Hallam, Henry, 614 
Hallyday, Lady Jane, 417 
Hamick, Bart., Sir — , Lord Grey's 

doctor, 671 
Hamilton, Colonel, at Waterloo, 220, 

225, 229-231, 238 ; wounded, 234, 

235 ; at Cambray, 277 
Hamilton, Mrs. {nee Ord), 220, 225, 

278, 283, 286 
Hamilton, 9th Duke of, 309, 4l0<o 
Hamilton, Lady, 70, 340 
Hamilton, Lady Anne, 302, 309, 359, 

366 
Hamilton, Lady Charles Douglas- 

(afterwards Duchess of Somerset), 

406 
Hamilton, Lord Archibald, 85? 122, 

128, 309, 351, 392, 406 
Hammersley, 34 
Hammond, General, 150 
Hamond, Sir Andrew, 277 
Hanbury- Williams, Sir Charles, 380, 

381 
Hansard, 81 

Hardinge, Sir Henry, 499 
Hardy, Lady, 256 
Hardy, Sir Thomas, 256 
Hare, 61, 84 
Harewood, Earl of, 374 
Hargrave, Mr., 194 
Harper, General (America), 279 
Harrington, 2nd Earl of, 57 
Harrington, 3rd Earl of, 56, 330, 

533 
Harrowby, Countess of, 324 
Harrowby, ist Earl of, 166, 314, 324, 

328, 584, 586 
Harvey, Mr., 238 
Harvey, Mrs., 276, 279 
Harvey, Sir John, 670 



Hastings, ist JNIarquess of, 6:27 

Hastings, Warren, 59, 61 

Hastings, Mrs. Warren, 59 

Hatherton, Lord, 630, 647 

Hawarden, Lady, 516 

Hawkesbury, Lord. See Liverpool, 
Earl of 

Hay, Lord, killed at Quatre Bras, 
230 

Hayter, his picture of the Queen's 
trial, 412, 672 

Headfort, Marquess of, 244, 668 

Heathcote, Gilbert, 417 

Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, 560 

Heber, Mrs., 560 

Heber, M.P. for Oxford, 406 

Henry, Mr., 57S 

Herries, J, C., Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, 470, 482 

Hertford, Isabella, i\Iarchioness of, 
82, 148, 189, 214, 343, 490, 662 

Hertford, Marquess of, 214, 320, 355, 
398, 436, 443, 563, 567, 569 

Hervey, Lord, 277, 281, 429, 609 

Hesse-Homburg, Frederick, Land- 
grave of, 339, 359, 362 

Heywood, Arthur, 610 

Heywood, Samuel, 130, 171 

Hieronymus, Queen Caroline's major- 
domo, 359 

Hill, Lord Arthur (afterwards Lord 
Sandys), 236, 238, 239, 283, 429, 
540, 552 

Hill, Lord, Commander-in-Chief, 
" Daddy,]' 277, 278, 496, 499 ; 
votes against Wellington, 582 ; on 
Queen Victoria, 672 

Hill, Miss, 277 

Hinchcliffe, Mr., 378 

Hobart, Secretary for Ireland, 521 

Hobhouse, John Cam (afterwards Lord 
Broughton),4o6, 423, 425, 441 ; and 
General Mina, 419 ; on Creevey's 
Reform pamphlet, 441 j Woods and 
Forests, 627 

Holland, Lady, "Madagascar," 82, 
158, 208, 249, 273, 300, 330, 341, 
346, 351. 357, 368, 379. 398, 400, 
411, 416, 428, 551, 611, 626, 651, 
653) 654, 664, 671 ; her letters to 
Mrs. Creevey, 151, 184, 189, 205; 
246, 264; her "nutshell," 496, 
" I tell you she's 57," 498 ; and 
Sefton's flowers, 598 ; " eating like 
a horse," 6095 her "procession," 
655 ; evidently failing, 656 ; her 
flattery, 675 

Holland, Lord, 114, 120, 159, 345, 

3 A 



696 



INDEX. 



346, 351. 381, 416, 470, 471, 497, 
551, 64s, 654, 655, 674, 675; 
Whitbread on, lOo ; Creevey on, 
143 ; on the state of public affairs, 
144; and Wellesley, 154; "quite 
inimitable," 157 ; and Alexander 
I,, 195, 457 ; on Napoleon, 196 ; 
his letters to Creevey, 206, 239, 263, 
264, 292 ; his love of tennis, 246 ; 
his daughter's death, 260 ; the 
Pains and Penalties Bill, 308, 325, 
334 j Wellington's scrape, 348 ; his 
apology to the Emperor of Russia, 
357; his Bill to enable Duke of 
Norfolk to officiate as Earl Marshal, 
420 ; denounced by the Malignants, 
478 ; defends the Navarino business, 
483 ; the Reform Bill, 578, 589 ; 
on peer-making, 583 ; his agree- 
ableness, 609, 614 ; making offers 
to Lord Howick, 637 ; the reposi- 
tory of Brougham's confidential 
letters, 643 

Holland, Henry, 4th Lord, 610 

Holmes, William, 555, 563 

Hood, Viscount, Lord Chamberlain 
to Queen Caroline, 345, 360, 362, 

363 
Hood, Viscountess, 359, 366 
Hope, M.P. for Lancashire, 36, 280, 

281 
Hoppner, his portrait of Berkeley and 

Keppel Craven, 356 
Horn, John, of Cambridge, 170 
Hornby, Mrs., 17 

Hombys of Knowsley, the, 1 72, 203 
Home, Mr., Surgeon of Newcastle-on 

Tyne, 186 
Horner, Francis, 99, 112, 157, 249; 

his motion on McMahon's salary, 

162; Western on, 251; on the 

Sinking Fund, 252 ; his death, 

278 
Horton, Mr,, 172 
House of Commons, tone of debates 

in, 21 
Houses of Parliament, burnt, 630 
Houston, Lady Jane, 148, 545 
Howard, Bernard. See Norfolk, 12th 

Duke of 
Howard, Lord, 351 
Howard of Effingham, Lord, 336 
Howick, Lady (Maria Copley), 80, 

295. 306, 310 
Howick, Lord (afterwards 3rd Earl of 

Grey), 80, 373, 401, 423, 464, 

507, 585, 637, 638, 642, 652, 663, 

678 



Howman, a witness in the Qufeen'sj 
trial, 329, 335 

Howorth, Mr., 78 

Howth, Lord, 530 

Hughes, Colonel J., 572, 573 

Hughes of Kinmel (afterwards Lord 
Dinorben), 80, 412 

Hughes of Kinmel, Mrs. (afterwards 
Lady Dinorben), 80 

Hugomont, 237, 239 

Hume, Dr., 239, 55 1, 645 

Hume, Joseph, 377, 392, 405, 408, 
416, 418, 593, 594, 645 

Hundred Days, the, 213, 218 

Hunloke, Miss Charlotte (Countess of 
Albemarle), 375 

Hunt, Henry, "Orator," 397 

Huntly, Marchioness of (Lady E. 
Conyngham), 333, 375 

Huntly, 9th Marquess of, 125, 333 

Huskisson, Rt. Hon. William, Secre- 
tary to the Treasury, 36, 151, 162, 
165 ; First Commissioner Woods- 
and Forests, 207, 412 ; Canning 
and, 441-443, 464 ; the Corn Bill, 
464 ; his load of unpopularity^ 
483 ; and Wellington's Cabinet, 
486, 487; "fell 50 per cent. in. 
last night's jaw," 494 ; resigns on 
Corn Laws, 500, 501 ; on Stanley, 
"the Hope of the Nation," 545 j 
killed at Liverpool, 555 

Hutchinson, Hon. Christopher H., 
M.P. for Cork, 161, 370 

Hutchinson, Lord, on substitution of 
Council for Viceroy in Ireland, 
16 ; Commander of Army in Egypt, 
48 ; the true account of Austerlitz, 
49; Mrs. Creevey's "chief flirt,'' 
73 ; " Wellington ought to be 
hanged," 130 ; and the Prince 
Regent, 138, 141, 142, 146, 149 ^ 
the Russian accounts of their 
victories, 170 ; and Queen Caroline, 
302, 370 ; interview with the king, 
326 ; and Creevey, 334, 335 ; 
Creevey's visit to, 516-519 . 



Ibrahim, General (Turkey), 475 
Influenza, prevalence of, 575, ,594^ 

659 .. 

Inverness, Duchess of (Lady Cecilia 
Buggin, Duchess of Sussex), 572, 
585, 600, 671 . 

Irby, ]\Ir,, 442 



INDEX. 



697 



Ireland, anomaly of the Lord Lieu- 
tenancy, 16 ; Creevey's visit to and 
impressions of, 510-534 ; Donough- 
more's recollections of, 520-522 ; 
Anglesey's view of, 524 

Irish Church Reform, 596-59S, 615, 
616 

Irving, Edward, 417, 427 

Isle of Man, 37 ; Receiver-General- 
ship offered to Creevey, 591, 592 

Italy, Napoleon in command of the 
army in, 6 



Jacobins, masters of Paris, 214, 217 

Jeffrey, Francis, Lord, 205 

Jeffrey, Rev. —,319 

Jekyll, 189 

Jenkinson, Lady Selina (afterwards 
Lady Milton), 619 

Jerningham, Mrs., 661, 662 

Jersey, Frances, Countess of, 343, 367 

Jersey, Sarah Sophia, Countess of, 
189, 297, 318, 324, 326, 332, 381, 
455, 474, 492, 502, 576, 612; 
Alexander I. waltzing with, 197 ; 
the " Lady Augusta " of Glenai-von, 

, 254 ; and Brougham, 259, 295, 
415, 475 ; Creevey's visit to Mid- 
dleton, 295, 296 ; " herself is a 
host," 351 ; and Mrs. Brougham, 
413 ; scene between Durham and, 
561 ; mad against Reform, 565 ; 
and Wellington, 574 ; Palmerston 
and, 610, 611 ; Lady Pembroke v.y 

654 

John Bull, 344 

Johnson, Dr. S., London, 134 

Johnson, Mrs., 417 

Johnson, Sir John, Superintendent- 
General and Inspector-General of 
Indian affairs in British North 
America, 406 

Johnstone, Bart., Sir G. F., 65B 

Johnstone, George, 62, 64, 65, 67, 
68, 70 

Johnstone, Lady Louisa, 653 

Johnstone, Miss, 65-68 

Jordan, Mrs., 642 

Jourdan, Camille, 7 

Juarenais, Madame de, 233, 234 

Juarenais, Marquis de, 231, 233, 234 

Junius, Letters of, 350 

Junot, General, 89 

Juvenal, 3rd Satire, 134 



K 



Karaiskaki, General (Greece), 475 

Kean, 418 

Keith, Lady, 611, 612 

Keith, Lord, 149 

Kemeys-Tynte, Mr., 655 

Kempt, General Sir James, Com<- 
mander 8th Brigade at Waterloo, 
596, 600, 601, 609 

Kennedy, Mr., 566 

Kensington, Lady, 413 

Kensington, 2nd Lord ("Og, King of 
Bashan"), 78, III, 112, 114, 381, 
404, 413, 538 ; Creevey and the 
Lord Mayor's invitation card, 338 ; 
on France and Louis XVIII. , 403 ; 
story of the Duke of Buckingham, 
411 ; tenders his son's resignation 
to Canning, 414 ; the facts of the 
Garth case, 539 

Kent, Duchess of, 282, 283, 284, 425, 
552 ; and Queen Victoria, 570, 
599, 666-668 ; absent from Wil- 
liam IV.'s coronation, 579, 580; 
Creevey, 619 ; her fetes at Kensing- 
ton, 652 ; Creevey plays whist 
with, 669, 670 ,' and Conroy, 674 

Kent, Duke of, 113, 115, 276, 297 ; 
Creevey's notes on a conversation 
with, 269-271, 667 ; his mother's 
illness, 282 ; his appearance, 283 ; 
Wellington's jokes about, 284 

Kenyon, Lord, 308 

Keogh, a Dublin silk mercer, 520, 
521 

Keppel, Lady Anne (Countess af 
Leicester), 378, 439 

Keppel, Lady Mary (afterwards 
Stephenson), 439 

Kerr, Lord Mark, 18 

Kerry, Earl of, 550, 596 

Kerry, Knight of, 454, 456, 523 

Kew, Mr., 392 

Kilkenny, the Catholic meeting at, 

524 
Kmg, Lady, 413, 414 
King, Lord, 352, 406, 413, 414, 421 
Kingston, Earl of, 372, 421 
Kinnaird, Hon. Douglas, 416, 440, 

444 
Kinnaird, Lady Olivia (Fitzgerald), 

273.444 
Kinnaird, Lord, 114, 246, 258, 262, 
574 ; against Prince Regent and 
Bank Note Bill, 146 ; his arrest by 
Napoleon, 244 ; takes Lady C. 
Lamb's Gknarvon to J\lrs. Creevey, 



698 



•INDEX. 



254 ; and the Antiquary, 255 ; 
Wellington and the Marinet inci- 
dent, 272, 276 ; the plot in Prince 
of Orange's favour, 286 ; his fatal 
illness, 443 
Kirkwall, Lord (afterwards 5th Earl 

of Orkney), 438 
KnatchbuU, Mr., 644 
ICnight, Mr., a barrister, 539 
Knighton, Sir William, 129, 446, 
462 ; George IV. 's executor, 575 



Labedoyere, General, 2iQ 

Lade, Sir John, Queen Victoria's 
generosity to, 677, 678 

La Fayette, 7, 520 

Lamb, George, 381, 543 

Lamb, Hon. William. See Mel- 
bourne, Viscount 

Lamb, Lady Caroline [nee Ponsonby), 
Glenarvon : The Fatal Passion, 

254 

Lamb, Mrs. George, 344, 381 

Lambton, Hedworth, 671 

Lambton, John George. Sec Dur- 
ham, Earl of 

Lambton, Lady Louisa (nie Grey). 
See Durham, Countess of 

Lambton, Mrs. William, 425 

Lancey, de, 238 

Lane, Mr. and Mrs. Fox, 438, 556 

Langdale, Lord and Lady, 664 

Langford, Lord, 294 

Lansdowne, Henry Petty, 3rd Mar- 
quess of, 10, 128, 163, 259, 308, 318, 
326, 329, 336, 340, 377, 416, 437, 
454-458, 464, 468, 484, 496, 550, 
664 ; Chancellor of the Exchequer 
in "All the Talents," 42 ; amend- 
ment censuring Pitt, 74 ; opposed 
at Cambridge by Palmerston and 
Althorp, 75-77 ; Whitbread on his 
leadership of the House of Com- 
mons, 100, 112 ; succeeds to Earl- 
dom, 100, 113 ; and Creevey, 122, 
141 ; Grey's view of Canning, 159 ; 
Alexander I. and, 195 ; Wellington 
on, 286 ; a furious speech, 325 ; 
Wellington's scrape, 348 ; Soult's 
offer of Murillos, 412 ; Althorp 
on, 459, 463 ; Goderich put over 
him, 465 ; and Herries, 470 ; de- 
nounced by the Malignants, 478 ; 
in favour with George IV., 482, 
483; Sefton on, 486; "Roscius," 



576 ; Auckland's appointment i<% 
the Admiralty, 619 

Lansdowne, Marchioness of, 256 

Lansdowne, 2nd Marquess of, 36, 
100, 113, 130 

Laon, 280 

Las Casas, 403 

Lascelles, Lord, 294 

Latouche, David, his motion v. 
Catholic petition to Irish House of 
Commons, 520 

Lauderdale, 8th Earl of, 13, 130, 184, 
208, 209, 213, 253, 256, 297, 368, 
493 ; Byron's poem rejected by 
Murray, 294 ; and Brougham, 30, 
370,496; the Queen's trial, 317, 
323, 332, 335 ; K-T., 369 ; nego- 
tiates between George IV. and 
Lady Conyngham, 431 

La Vallette, 246 

Lawley, M.P. for Warwickshire, 376 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, his portrait 
of Lady Conyngham, 376 

Leach, Mrs., 258 

Leach, Vice-Chancellor, 298, 312, 

333. 438, 559 . . , 

Leamington, Creevey's opinion of, 

555 
Leconfield, ist Lord, 507 
Lee, spokesman at Covent Gardenj 

97 
Leeds, Duke of, 498 
Legge, Dean of Windsor, " Mother 

Frump," 247 
Legh of Lyme, M.P. for Newton, 

233 
Leicester, Countess of (Lady Anne 

Keppel), 378 
Leicester, Rev. — , 512 
Leicester, ist Earl of. See Coke, 

Thomas 
Leicester, Thomas William, ist Earl 

of, B78, 418, 674 
Leigh, Egerton, of the West Hall, 

Cheshire, 490 
Leigh, Marianne (Hon. Mrs. James 

Abercromby), 490 
Leinster, Duchess of, 533 
Leinster, Duke of, 308, 310, 348, 373, 

421, 496, 523, 532, 580 
Le Marchant, Brougham's secretary, 

579 
Lemon, Miss, 378, 407 
L'Enfant, Council of Pisa, 293 
Lennox, Lady Louisa, 429 
Lennox, Lord William, 417 
Leopold, King of the Belgians, 413, 

415' 599 



INDEX. 



699 



Leopold of Saxe-Cobiug-Saalfeld, 
Prince, 25S, 266, 270, 349, 425, 552 

Leveson, Lady Francis (nJe Greville), 
390, 401 

l^eveson, Lord Francis (afterwards 
Earl of EUesmere), 185, 401, 406, 
530 

Leveson-GovTcr, Lord Francis, Secre- 
tary for Ireland, 502, 511 

Leveson-Gower, Lord Granville, 206 

Leycester, 126 

Liancourt, M., 5 

Lichfield, Lady, 619 

Liddell, 423 

Lieven, Prince de, 509, 604, 621 

Lieven, Princess de, 326, 357, 446, 
471. 472, 509. 538, 604, 621, 632, 
651 

Ligny, 236 

Lindley, Hester (Mrs. R. B. Sheri- 
dan), 4, 39, 52, 54, 55, 60, 72, 
80-82 

Lindley, Mr., 54, 55 

Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, 1S2, 183, 
199, 322, 330, 345, 597 

Lindsay, Mr., 323 

Lister, 416 

Littleton, created Lord Hatherton, 
.630, 647 

Liverpool, Sir Charles Jenkinson, 1st 
Lord Hawkesbury, and ist Earl of, 
his speech on Russia's offer of 
mediation, 15 ; War Minister, 96 ; 
Wellington's letter on the Portu- 
guese soldiers, 128, 131 ; interview 
with Prince Regent, 157 ; Canning 
and, 159, 41 1, 445 ; Prime ^Minister, 
165, 166, 175 ; his letter in reply 
to Princess of Wales' remonstrance, 
177 ; entertains foreign royalties, 
194; and Sheridan, 195 ; " Jenky," 
211, 260, 388 ; the Princess of 
Wales' intended return to Kensing- 
ton Palace, 212 ; for peace, 214 ; 
Roman Catholic Emancipation, 
293 J Queen Caroline's increased 
allowance, 301-304 ; Pains and 
Penalties Bill, 304, 308, 309, 318, 
329, 338 ; the divorce part of the 
Bill, 317 ; sharp words with Eldon, 
323, 339 ; the Italian witnesses, 
325, 336; and Grey, 332, 336, 
337 ; Wellington's scrape, 348 ; 
the Queen's Will, 364 ; the King's 
Knights of the Thistle, 369 ; trying 
to keep peace with Spain, 404 ; 
the Corn Laws, 443 ; an apoplectic 
stroke, 447, 450 



Liverpool, Charles Cecil Cope, 3rd 

Earl of, 619 
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 

429, 545> 555 

Llandart, Lord, Metnoirs, 264, 523 

Lloyd, 37S 

Loch, Mr., K.C., 108 

" Loco Motive machine," 545 

Loison, General, 103 

Londonderry, Charles William, 3rd 
Marquess of, Wellington's Adjutant- 
General in the Peninsula, 423, 

435. 455> 473. 477. 495 
Londonderry, Frances Anne, Mar- 
chioness of, 400, 422, 423, 433, 

435 
Lonsdale, Countess of, 469 
Lonsdale, 2nd Earl of, 254, 317, 323, 

469, 489 
Lories, Baron, 227 

Lothian, 5th Marquess of, 18 

Louis XVI., guillotined, i 

Louis XVIII., and Fouche, 8; re- 
stored to throne, 187, 190 ; visits 
London, 187 ; Ney's offer about 
Napoleon, 214; Soult resigns War 
Ministry, 220 ; words, not deeds, 
223.; and Baron Lories, 227 ; well 
received at Le Cateau, 239 ; pro- 
posals to dethrone, 286 ; Tierney's 
"frightful intelligence," 346; the 
operation of signing papers, 368 ; 
Kensington in a fury v., 403 ; 
Erskine's wish, 410 

Louis Philippe, 612, 651 

Lowe, Sir Hudson, Quarter-Master- 
General, 224 ; his marriage, 247 ; 
Wellington on, 288, 289 ; O'Meara's 
letter to, SS2; and Major Popple- 
ton, 389 

Lowther, Lord, 449, 489 

Lucien Buonaparte, 215, 226 

Lugano witnesses, the, 316, 317 

Lushington, Dr., 328, 431, 654 ;. 
present at Queen Caroline's death, 
363 ; the Queen's funeral, 364,366 ;; 
Phillimore put over his head, 482 

Lushington, Mrs., 431 

Luttrell, Henry, 400, 509, 538, 565,. 
578,611,614,656 

Liitzen, Madame, Queen Victoria's 
governess, 665 

Lyndhurst, Lady, 540, 565 

Lyndhurst, Lord (Copley), 437, 455^ 
456, 586, 640, 642-644, 665, 666 

Lyttclton, Lord and Lady, 597 



70O 



INDEX. 



M 



Macaulay, Lord, on Twiss, 354; 
Lansdowne and, 550; his "me- 
morable words," 580 ; Creevey on, 
596 

Macdonald, James, 120, 162, 321, 
328, 377, 462, 571, 596 

Macdonald, Marshal, 221 

Macdonald, Norman, 522 

Mack, General (Austria), 44 

McKenzie, Mr., 481, 485 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 3, 254, 354, 
427, 483 ; in Paris, 5-7 ; and Perry, 
298 ; Fox's epitaph, 299, 300 

McMahon, Colonel Sir John, Prince 
Regent's private secretary, etc., 
, 39, 66, 71, 81, 82, no. III, 136, 
140, 162, 179, 447 

Mad dock, Mr., 12 

Madrid, occupied by Wellington, 173 

Magdalene College, Cambridge, 
Library, 622 

"Magnetism (mesmerism), exhibition 
of, 673 

Magra, 517 

Mahon, Lord, 86 

Mahon, The O'Gorman, 536 

Maitland, General Sir Peregrine, 
230, 527 

Maitland, Lady Julia, 402 

Maitland, Lady Sarah {nee Gordon- 
Lennox), 527 

Malignants, the, 477, 478 ; quarrel 
with Brougham, 491 

Mallet du Pan, M., 288 

Malmesbury, ist Earl of, 277 

Malta, 10, 14 

Manchester, 6th Duke of, 649 

Mann, Sir Horace, Minister at 
Florence, 603 

Manners, Jack, 244 

Manners, Lady Louisa, 417 

Manners, Lord Chancellor (Ireland), 

314. 405 
Manning, Mr., 125 
Mansel, Bishop, 129 
Mansfield, Lord, 337 
Manson, General, 61 
Manvers, Earl and Countess, 596 
Marble Arch, 650 
March, Lord, 222 
Marcot, M., 265 
Marie Antoinette, 642 
Mariette, 328 
Marinet, 272, 276 
Marjoribanks, S., 658 
^larkham, Mr., 68 



Marlborough, Duke of, 13, 77, 504, 

609 
Marmont, General, 173, 190, 225, 

589 
Martin, Harry, Master in Chancery, 

136, 410, 589 
Martin, Harry, the regicide, 589 
Martyn, 100, 112 
Mary, Queen, 507 
Maryborough, Lord, 466 
Mathews, 54 
Maude, 457 

Maule, Solicitor to Treasury, 323 
Maxwell of Monreith, Miss Catherine 

(Mrs. Fordyce), 34 
Maxwell, Sir William, of Monreith, 

M.P., III, 122, 128 
Maynooth College, 517, 521, 522, 

534 
Meath, Lord, 373 

Mecklenberg-Strelitz, Duke of, 205 
Melbourne, Viscount (PI on. William 
Lamb), 254, 255, 311, 381, 509, 
555. 558, 561, 568, 606, 611, 650, 
663, 664, 670, 671 ; in favour of 
disfranchisement, 500, 501 ; his 
crim. con. case, 502 ; letters of 
introduction for Creevey, 510; 
Secretary of State, 576 ; and 
William IV., 624-626, 628, 638, 
639 ; and Brougham, 628, 629 ; 
action against, 653; "all good 
nature and gaiety," 655 ; and 
Queen Victoria, 667, 669, 674 ; 
" the rickety nature of his Cabinet," 
673 ; Sir John Lade and, 677 
Melbourne, Viscountess, 255, 506 
Melville, Henry Dundas, Viscount, 
10 ; First Lord of the Admiralty, 
32 ; impeachment of, 33-36 ; his 
court in Scotland, 85 ; and Broug- 
ham, 119; a great favourite with 
Prince of Wales, 159 ; the Queen's 
funeral, 364 ; K.T., 369 ; resigns 
on Canning becoming Premier, 

454 
Mermet, General, loi 
Methodism, rapid growth of, 1 13 
Methuen, Lady, 622 
Methuen, Paul, Lord, 621 
Meux, H„ 577 
Meynell, Captain, dismissed from 

William IV. 's household, 567 
Miguel, Dom, King of Portugal, 605 
Milan Commission, 326, 335, 499 
Milbank, Lady Augusta, 423, 424, 

434, 572 
Milbank, Mr., 423, 434 



INDEX. 



7ot 



i^lildert, Wm. Van, Bishop of Dur- 
ham, 473 

Mildmay, Sir Harry, 152, 190 

Mill, 393 

Mills, John, 354, 357, 423-425, 434, 
442 

Milton, Lady, nSe Jenkinson (after- 
wards Foljambe), 619 

Milton, Viscount (afterwards 5th 
Earl ofFitzvvilliam), 109, 118, 122, 
125, 157, 166, 257, 263, 471, 619 

Mina, General Espoz y. Commander 
of a Corps under Wellington in 
Peninsular War, 416, 417 

Minto, Lord, 664 

Miocci, 335 

Miranda, General, 86 

^Missionary in Demerara, trial by 
court-martial of, 419 

]Moira, ist Earl of, 161 

Moira, 2nd Earl of, 16, Bl, 113, 146, 
149, 157-161, 164, 165 

Moldavia, 481 

^lolesworth. Sir William, 659 

Moliere, Bourgeois Gtntilhomme, 183 

Molyneux, Colonel the Hon. Henry, 
540, 632 

IMolyneux, Lady Georgians, 398 

Molyneux, Lady Louisa, 479, 603, 
652 ; her letters to Creevey, 605, 
672, 675 

IMolyneux, Lady Maria, 479, 485, 

565 
Molyneux, Lieut. -Colonel the Hon, 

George Berkeley, 529, 595, 596, 

610, 632 
Molyneux, Viscount, 171, 574, 610 
Monck, 217 
Monckton, 56 
Monk, Sir Charles, 108 
Monson, Lady (afterwards Lady 

Warwick), 247 
Monson, Lord, 247 
Montalembert, Baron, 149 
Monteagle, Lord (Spring Rice), 449, 

450.454.456, 522, 6ir, 618, 637, 

640 
iNIontgomery, 540 
Montholon, M., 368 
Montron, M., 479, 480, 509, 658 
Moore, R.N., Captain Graham, 12, 

18, 133 ; his letters to Creevey, 17, 

24. 77. 90, 95 
Moore, General Sir John, 11, 18, 90, 

93-95, 278, 657 ; his letters to 

Creevey, 17, 29 
Moore, Lady, 17 
Moore, Peter, 256 



Moore, Thomas, 255, 431, 574, 614, 

628 
Morant, Mrs., 67, 68 
Morelaix, Abbe, 7 
Morillo, 416 

Morley, Countess of, 585, 648 
Morley, Earl of, 411, 585, 648 
Alorning Chronicle, 4, 132, 177, 179, 

269, 658 
Morning Herald, 562 
Morning Post, 4, 562 
Morpeth, Lord, 6th Earl of Carlisle, 

27, 78, 121, 465, 648 
Morpeth, Lord, 7th Earl of Carlisle, 

565, 618, 620, 649 
Morris, General, 510 
Morris, Lieut. -Colonel, 511 
Morritt of Rokeby, " Avoirdupois," 

467, 468 
Morritt of Rokeby, " Troy," 468 
Motteux, M., 509 
Mountague, Lord, his fountain at 

Cowdray, 505 
"Mountain, the," name assumed by 

Radicals, 124, 175, 182, 210, 212, 

215, 216, 247, 253, 257, 265, 290, 

299, 34:1, 478 
Mountcharles, Earl of. Under Secre- 
tary Foreign Affairs, 445, 490 
Mulgrave, Countess of, 672 
Mulgrave, Earl of, 96, 583, 618, 638, 

645 
Municipal Reform Bill, 650 
Munster, Earl of, 642, 665 
Murat, King of Naples, 213, 218 
Murillos, offered by Soult for 

;^IOO,000..4I2 

Murphy, Mrs., 452 

Murray, General Sir George, 272, 

279, 283, 285 
Murray, General Sir John, 185 
Murray, John, and Byron, 294 ; the 

Quarterly Reuiew on O'Meara's 

book, 407 ; on the Ladies of 

Llangollen, 527 
Murray, Lady Augusta, Duchess of 

Sussex, 585 



N 



Napier, Peninsular War, loi, 314, 

315 
Napoleon Buonaparte, IMackintosh 
and, 5 ; suppresses the Sections, 6 ; 
commander of army in Italy, ibid. ; 
his fits of passion, 7 ; his restless 
ambition, 10, 14, 24, 29 ; and 



702 



JNDEX. 



Lord Whitworth, lo, 13J and 
Addington, 1 1 ; swept through 
the Black Forest, 44 ; Austerlitz, 
49 ; his armies in all parts of 
Europe, 86 ; Spain, 86, 88, 90 ; 
"a temperate hardy knave," 96; 
overshot his mark, 175 ; abdicates, 
187, 187, 189, 191, 239 ; the differ- 
ence between Emperor of Russia 
and King of Prussia, 196 ; his 
popularity, 196 ; escapes from 
. Elba, 213; Ney's offer, 214; 
Waterloo, before and after, 219, 
-3I) 237, 240; Kinnaird's arrest, 
244 ; at St. Helena, 266, 288 ; 
and Blucher at Laon, 280 ; Sir 
Hudson Lowe, 288 ; Tierney and, 
346 ; Princess Borghese's appeal, 
368 ; O'Meara's book, 381, 384 ; 
Castlereagh one of his imbeciles, 
385 ; Major Poppleton, 389 ; Las 
Casas' book, 403 ; and Montron, 
479, 480 ; and General Gerard, 
544 ; Brougham on, 549 

Nash, the architect, 498 

Navarino, battle of, 476, 481-485 

Navy Estimates, 377 

Nelson, Earl, 69, 70, 73, 503 

New Zealand, king of, 330 

Newcastle, Duke of, 337, 569 

Newcastle-on-Tyne, 186 

Newport, Sir John, 127 

Newton, Lord, B8B 

Ney, Marshal, 190, 214, 246 

"Nimrod," 635 

Nivelle, battle of, 187, 235 

Nollekens, sculptor, 184 

Non mi ricordo, 322 

Norfolk, nth Duke of, " the Jockey," 
3, 15s, 168, 169, 186, 212, 245, 

252, 413 
Norfolk, Bernard Howard, 12th Duke 
of, "Scroop," 168-170, 245, 313, 
322, 335. 336, 377. 413. 420, 446, 
504, 537, 538. 645, 652, 671, 677 ; 
deprives Creevey of Thetford seat, 
274, 275 ; Prince of Wales' advice 
to Sam Spring, 310 ; letter to 
Creevey, 325 ; Pains and Penalties 
Bill, ibid. ; in pursuit of Creevey, 
337 ; denounced by O'Connell, 

530 
Norfolk, 13th Duke of (Earl of 

Arundel), 245 
North, Lord, 588, 660 
Northumberland, Duchess of, 482 
Northumberland, 5th Duke of, 278 
Northumberland, 6th Duke of, 31, 



100, no, 296, 336, 499; Viceroy 

of Ireland, 516, 535 
Norton, Hon. Mrs. (iiee Sheridan), 

afterwards Lady Stirling-Maxwell 

of Keir, 39, 647, 653 
Norton, Mr., 653 
Nugent, Earl, 431 



O 



O'Callaghan, 440 

O'Connell, David, the Clare electioir,. 
509, 535 ; Creevey on, 525, 593 ; 
denounces Duke of Norfolk ovt 
Catholic question, 530 ; his 
"Catholic cookery," 541; his 
arrest, 558 ; Stanley and, 561 ; 
challenged by Alvanley, 646, 647 
Oldenburg, Duchess of, 195 
Oldi, Madame, 328, 339, 356 
Olivia of Cumberland, Princess (Olive 

Wilmot Serres), 339, 340, 349 
O'Meara, A Voice from St. Helena,. 

224, 288, 381, 384, 389, 407 
Omnibus, Creevey's first experience 

of an, 604 

Oporto, loi 

Orange, Prince of. King of Holland.. 
197, 217, 222, 285, 286 ; Com- 
mander-in-Chief of British forces 
in Brussels, 224 

Orangemen (Ireland), 516, 519 

Ord, Charles, 224, 230, 231 

Ord, Miss (Mrs. Hamilton), 220, 

225, 228, 277, 283, 286 

Ord, Miss Elizabeth, 232, 267, 283,, 
295 ; letters from Creevey to, 296, 
299, 305-318, 320-342, 343-357. 
362, 365-370, 373-381, 384, 388- 
391. 395. 398-400, 407, 409-434* 
440-444. 446-454, 462-476, 479, 
483-485, 489-499, 501-509. 5"- 
534, 536-547. 550-556, 557-580^ 
582-678 

Ord, the Misses, 17, 47, 147, 149, 
224, 229, 276, 277 

Ord, Mr., 4, 121 

Ord, Mrs., i, 12S 

Ord, William, 621 

Ordnance Office, Creevey appointed 
treasurer of, 557 

O'Reilly, George IV. 's doctor, 553 

Orkney, Earl of, 438 

Orleans, Duke of, 244, 595, 6ii, 6i2: 

Ormonde, i6th Earl of, 527' 

Ormonde, 17th Earl of, 528 

Osbaldiston, Mr., 542 



INDEX. 



703 



Ossory, Archdeacon of, 517 
Ossory, Lord, 157 
Ossulston, Lady, 351 
Ossulston, Lord (afterwards 5lh Earl 
of Tankerville), in, 121, 122, 150, 
• 151, 16S, 210, 243-245, 254, 295, 

331, 351. 378. 381, 474, 494. 553 
Oswald of Auchencruive, Alexander, 

653 
Oswald, Lady Louisa, 653 
Ouvrad, the banker, 7 
Owen, Mr. and Mrs. Smytlie, 512 
Oxford, Countess of, 3, 60, 255, 402 



Paget, Lord and Lady 'William, 523 

Paget, Sir Arthur, 657 

Pains and Penalties Bill, 304-342 

Palfy, Count, 45 

Palk, Miss Elizabeth JMallet (after- 
wards Lady Seymour), 266 

Palmerston, Lady, 610 

Palmerston, Viscount, 541, 555, 568, 
652 ; opposes Petty at Cambridge, 
75, 76 ; Secretary at War, 465 ; 
votes for disfranchisement, 500 ; 
and Lady Jersey, 610, 611 ; and 
Mrs. Petre, 618 ; Grey and, 628 ; 
dismissed by Wellington, 640 ; 
"Cupid," 649 ; on Queen Victoria's 
great merits, 666 

Paoli, Sefton's valet, 598 

Papal States, the, 213 

Paripol, the dancer, 625 

Paris, treaty of, 249 ; awaiting Napo- 
leon's entry, 220, 221 

Parkes, Joseph, of Birmingham, an 
organizer and demagogue, 612 

Parliamentary Reform, 263, 393, 439- 

441, 593 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 164 

Parnell, Henry Brook (Lord Congle- 
ton), 31, 164 

Parr, Dr., 3, 359 

Patronage, 445, 557 

Paul], his exertions to obtain Welles- 
ley's impeachment, 226 ; his suicide, 
226, 383 

Payne, George, 113, 422, 655, 658 

Pearce, Henry, "the Game Chicken," 
champion of England , 64 

Pechell, Captain, 312 

Peel, Sir Robert, "Spinning Jenny," 
126, 483, 617 J his first speech, 122 ; 
M.P. for Oxford, 263 ; Creeveyon, 
354? 385-387? 442 ; Brougham on, 



392, 487 ; for Spain against France, 
404 ; Ward on, 41 1 ; and Canning, 
445, 454, 475 ; and George IV., 
452 J resigns office, 454, 455 ; Sef- 
ton on, 459 ; his difficult position, 
488, 489 ; his " preconceived pre- 
judices," 494 ; the Roman Catholic 
question, 516, 536, 586, 588; Home 
Secretary, 537 ; Grey's panegjTic 
on» 538. 540 ; Reform, 575 ; con- 
sulted by Grey about the corona- 
tion, 576 ; a most remarkable de- 
claration from, 588 ; and William 
IV., 626 ; his absence in Rome,. 
638, 640, 641; "the humbug of 
Jenny,"_ 644; predicted failure, 
645]; his Scotch sentiment, etc., 
659; "every word was gospel," 

Pelham, Bishop, 323 

Pellew, Admiral, 95 

Pembroke, Countess of, 654 

Peninsular War, 87, 153, 157, 160,. 
17s 

Peiiryn borough, bribery and corrup- 
tion in, 461 ; disfranchised, 500 

Pension lists, 560 

Pepys, 622 

Perceval, Spencer, 96, 99, 100, log- 
in, 114, 119, 124, 126, 132, 136- 
138, 146, 175, 569; assassinated, 
145. 153, 392 

Percy, Colonel the Hon., A.D.C. to 
Sir John Moore and Wellington, 
carried Wellington's despatches to 
London after Waterloo, 278 

Percy, Earl, 76, 100, no 

Perry, editor of Morning C/tronick, 
132, 298 

Persia, Russian successes in, 481 

Petre, Lady, 108, 325 

Petre, Lord, 37, 108, 167, 168, 252, 
421, 576 

Petre, Mrs., 618, 630 

Petworth, Creevey's description of, 

505 
Philips, Sir R., 112 
Philhmore, 482 
Phillips, George, 274, 406 
Picton, General, 23S 
Pierrepont, M., 152 
Pieton, Madame, 69 
Piggott, 108 
Pillet, General, 255 
Piltown (Ireland), 514, 515 
Pire, General, Red Lancers, 231 
Pitt, William, 3, 4, 12, 22, 69, 73, 

161, 263 ; in retirement, 8, 10 ; his 



704 



INDEX. 



intolerance of Addington, 9, 23 ; his 
treatment of Sir John Moore, 11 ; 
returns to House of Commons, 14 ; 
his speech for war, 15, 16, 20 ; and 
Fox, 21, 23 ; Lord St. Vincent, 
24 ; his last administration, 26, 27, 
31 ; and George III., 27 ; in a 
dilemma, 28 ; fears of French in- 
vasion, 29 ; Brougham on, 30, 119, 
120, 134, 172; his schemes of re- 
form, 32 ; Melville's impeachment, 
33 ; Roman Catholic question, 33, 
43; Boyd, Benfield & Co., 35-37 ; 
Beresford and, 42; Castlereagh 
and, 43; the capitulation of Ulm 
his death-blow, 44 ; his illness, 74 ; 
and death, 79, 461 ; his despotic 
authority, 260 ; Maynooth college, 
517, 521, 522 ; and the Catholic 
delegates, 521 

Plato, Bipontine edition of, 293 

Platoff, 196 

Plunket, Lord, 523, 530, 531, 603 

Plymouth, Lord, 337 

Pole, Sir Charles, 114, 122 

Police, origin of the, 304 

Ponsonby, Frederick, 107, 238 

Ponsonby, John, 5th Earl of Bess- 
borough, 610 

Ponsonby, Lady, no, in, 585 

Ponsonby, Lady Betty, 528 

Ponsonby, Lord, no, in, 128, 585 

Ponsonby, Major-General the Hon. 
Sir William, 242 

Ponsonby, Miss, 527 

Ponsonby, Rt. Hon. George, Leader 
of Whigs in House of Commons, 
91, 94, 107, 117, 121, 122, 124, 
125, 128, 141, 154, 162, 164, 165, 
217, 251, 257 

Ponsonby, Sir John, of Cumberland, 

513 
Poppleton, Major, 389 
Porchester, Lord, 124, 128 
Portarlington, 4th Earl of, 6Q2 
Porter, Colonel, 22, 352 
Portland, Duke of, 5i, 85, 86, 96, 

106, 145, 331 
Portsmouth, Lord, insane, 405 
Portugal, 130, 134, 147-149, 160; 

her " soldiers the fighting-cocks of 

the army," i28 
Portugal, King of, 652 
Powell, Mr., 322, 329, 671 
Power of Kilfane, John, 518, 524- 

526 
Power of Kilfane, Mrs., 517 
Powlett, Lady Caroline, 442 



Powlett, Lord (afterwards 3rd Duke 
of Cleveland), 442, 449, 468, 472- 
474> 543 

Poyntz, Miss, 264, 389 

Pozzo di Borgo, M. and Mdme, 649 

Pretyman, George (afterwards Tom- 
line), Bishop of Lincoln, 202 

Price, Rev. W., 76 

Property tax, 211, 250 

Prussia, 213, 218 

Pruth river, 481 

Pyrenees, the, 186, 187 



Quarterly Rez'ieiv, 407 
Quatre Bras, 230 



Radicals, named "the Mountain," 
q.v. ; schism between Whigs and, 
260 

Radnor, 2nd Earl of, 89, 96 

Radnor, 3rd Earl of. See Folkestone, 
Viscount 

Raganti, 326 

Raglan, Lord, 416, 631 

Raikes, "Dandy," 448-451 

Railway movement, the great, 429 

Raine, Jonathan, 457 

Ramsay, General Norman, 535 

Ramsden, Lady, 435 

Ramsden, Mr., 376 

Ramthorne, 172 

Ranelagh, Lord, 552 

Rastelli, 325, 326 

Rawdon, Hon. John, 627 

Redesdale, Lord, 314, 499 

Reeves, 603 

Reform, 263 ; Act, 274, 563, 565 ; 
Creevey's letters on, 435, 439-441 ; 
Bill, 354, 567, 569, 570, 572, 575, 
577, 578, 580, 582-589, 593, 634 

Retrenchment and Reform, 614 

Ribblesdale, Lord, Q47, 649 

Ricardo, 397 

Richelieu, Due de, 285, 287, 632 

Richmond, Dowager Duchess of, 380, 

429, 527 
Richmond, Duchess of, 430, 504 
Richmond, .3rd Duke of, 504 
Richmond, 5th Duke of, 223, 229, 

337, 504, 588, 606, 615, 616, 618, 

639, 647 
Ridgway, 435, 439, 440 



INDEX. 



705 



Ridley, Sir jM., 197, 217, 326, 379, 

423 

Ripon, Lord, 615 

Rivers, Lord, 196 

Robespierre, 7 

Robinson, J. See Goderich, Lord 

Roden, Lord, 320 

Roder, General, 223 

Roebuck, Mr., 659 

Rogers, Miss, 614, 627, 628, 664 

Rogers, Samuel, the dead poet, 255, 
256, 334, 335, 537, 538, 614, 627, 
628, 647, 654, 664, 665 ; Jdumau 
Life, 294 ; Lady Holland's cat, 
400 ; Creevey's opinion of, 504 ; a 
bltie dinner at, 617 ; Lady Hol- 
land's procession, 655 

RoUe, Lord, 261 

Roman Catholic question, 31, 43, 47, 
84, 100, 148, 153, 157, 158, 166, 
245, 29B, 334, 373, 409, 436, 445, 
450, 454, 458, 309, 512, 516-518, 
520-522, 530, 535 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, Solicitor-Gene- 
ral, in "All the Talents," 5, 122, 
130, 278, 290 ; Prince of Wales' 
offer of a seat in House of Com- 
mons, 40, 63 ; Grey on, ro8 ; calls 
Erskine "The Green Man and 
Still," 212; his suicide, 243, 293, 
383, 386; on Tierney, 265; "in 
high force," 272 ; and Duke of 
Roxburgh, 345 

Romney, George, his works at Pet- 
wortii, 507 

Ros, Lord de, 420, 540, 579, 580, 596, 

654 

Ros, Olivia de (Lady Cowley), 546, 
579, 605, 662 

Roscoe, William, historian, Creevey's 
election agent at Liverpool, 169- 
171, 211 ; Zeo : Lorenzo de Media', 
598, 622 

Roscommon, Countess of, 345 

Rose, Mr., 36 

Rosebery, Lady, 378 

Rosebery, 4th Lord, 335, 378 

Rosebery, 5th (and present) Lord, 
Napoleon, the last Phase, 3S2 

Rosslyn, Earl of, 305, 326, 333, 368, 
421, 441, 492, 493, 496; and 
Brougham, 471 ; Lord Lieutenant 
of Fife, 495, 497 ; Privy Seal, 

544 
Rothschild, 432 
Roxburgh, Duke of. Queen Caroline's 

Grand Chamberlain, 345 
Royal Exchange, burnt, 676 



Royal Naval Commission, 33 
Russell, Francis, 416, 442, 509 
Russell, Lady John, widow of 2nd 
Lord Ribblesdale, 647, 649, 670, 

673 

Russell, Lady William [ttee Rawdon), 
627 

Russell, Lord John, 157, 309, 333, 
376, 393, 421, 454, 456, 475, 603, 
610, 617, 618, 638, 649, 670; 
Creevey's Reform letters addressed 
to, 435, 439-441 ; motion for dis- 
franchisement of Penryn borough, 
461 ; Reform, 559, 563, 606 ; split 
between Stanley and, 615, 616; 
offer to Howick, 637 ; "the con- 
ceited puppy," 639 ; "the Widow's 
Mite," 647 

Russell, Lord William, 210, 277, 
278, 456, 497, 617, 627 ; murdered 
by his valet, 431, 671 

Russell, Miss, 422 

Russell, Mrs., alias Funnereau. See 
Cleveland, Duchess of 

Russia, 213, 218 ; and Greek inde- 
pendence, 475 ; and Turkey, 481 ; 
her successes in Persia, ibid. 

Rutland, Duke of, 323, 443, 452, 

477, 537, 541 
Ryder, Hon. Henry, Bishop of Lich- 
field, 512 



St. Albans, Duchess of (Mrs. Coutts, 

7iee Conway), 462, 559, 666 
St. Albans, 9th Duke of, 415, 462, 

559 
St. Antonio, Countess, 483 
St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of, 

10 
St. Laurent, Madame, 26S-271 
St. Leger, General, 195, 199, 201- 

203, 322 
St. Paul's Cathedral, thanksgiving 

for peace on 7th July at, 202 
St. Vincent, Earl, ist Lord of the 

Admiralty, 24, 68 
Salamanca, Battle of, 128, 173, 589 
Salisbury, Dowager Marchioness of, 

508, 552, 572, 576, 605 
Salisbury, Marquis of, 379, 415 
Salisbury, Sarah, Marchioness of, 

197, 236, 379, 409, 450, 539 
Salmo-Braunfels, Prince Frederick 

William of, 205 



7o6 



INDEX. 



Sambre, Napoleon's passage of the, 

233> 240 
San Sebastian, fall of, 187, 187 
Sandys, Lord (Lord Arthur Hill), 

236, 238, 239, 282, 429, 540, 

552 
Savory, 66-68 

Saxe-Coburg, Princess of, 271 
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld,Duke of (Prince 

Leopold), 238, 266 
Saye and Sele, Lord, 449 
Scarlett, Sir James. See Abinger, 

Lord 
Scheldt Expedition, 125, 133 
Scotsman, 387 
Scott, Harry, 80, 81 
Scott, Sir Walter, Antiquaiy, 255 ; 

Hob Roy, 264 ; George IV. 's visit 

to Edinburgh, 387 ; Rokeby, 467 ; 

Life of Napoleon, 545 
Seaford, Lord (Charles Rose Ellis), 

97 

Seaton, Lord, Governor-General of 
Canada, 676 

Seaton, Mr., 382 

Sebastiani, General, 250, 649 

Sebright, Sir John, 1 14, 540 

Sections in France, the, 6 

Sefton, Countess of (Hon. Maria 

- Craven), 351, 413, 425, 43i. 539. 
540, 551. 554. 561, 565. 575. 594, 
598, 617, 652, 657, 662, 664, 666, 
668 ; and William IV,, 650 

Sefton, Dowager Lady, 57, 148 

Sefton, 1st Earl of (" the Pet "), 57, 
121, 155, 159, 171, 200, 203, 208, 

,211, 261, 262, 267, 294, 300, 303, 
305, 312, 317, 318, 326-331. 345- 

. 347. 352. 353. 357. 374-379. 381. 
382, 398, 404, 406, 407, 411, 414, 
417, 418, 421, 426, 429-431. 435. 
439, 441, 443, 444, 450. 454. 456. 
459, 460, 463, 493, 496, 501, 508, 
510, 538. 540, 541. 546. 552, 553. 

■ 557. 565. 568, 579. 585. 591, 594. 
602, 603, 609, 616, 619, 621, 623, 
628, 630, 643, 646, 650, 654, 659, 
670 ; Creevey's great ally, 478- 
481 ; Grey on, 483 ; his letters to 
Creevey, 486, 498, 512, 528, 542, 
556, 592, 610, 611, 613 ; and 
Brougham, 484, 485, 561, 564, 569, 
572, 578, 587, 617, 629, 639, 640, 
642 ; cracking his jokes at the 
expense of Huskisson and Dudley, 
494 ; and Lady Holland, 497, 598 ; 
on Rogers, 504; and Lord Egre- 
mont, 506 ; correspondence between 



Anglesey and Wellington, 536 •; 
breaks the bank at Crockford's, 
537 ; Lambton's nonsense, 559 ; ill 
with influenza, 575, 576 ; Lord 
Foley's family, 595 ; a story of 
Grey, 625 ; wins ;^6oo at whist, 
631 ; and Lady Grey, 631 ; con- 
trast between Grey and, 641 ;. 
Charles X., 657, 658 ; and Sir John 
Lade, 677 

Sefton, 2nd Earl of, 574 

Sefton, 3rd Earl of, 574 

Serres, Olive Wilmot, claims to be 
Duke of Cumberland's daughter, 
339. 340 

Seymour, Lady {nee Palk), 266, 652, 
664 

Seymour, Lady Charlotte {nee Chol- 
mondeley), 266 

Seymour, Lieut.-Colonel Hugh Henry, 
266 

Seymour, Lord (afterwards 12th Duker 
of Somerset), 533, 652 

Seymour, Lord Hugh, 266 

Seymour, Miss, 389 

Seymour, Sir Horace Beauchamp„ 
266, 567 

Shaftesbury, 6tli Earl of, 564 

Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of, 54:0 

Sharp, Richard, 617 

Shaw, Colonel, 609, 670 

Shelley, P. B., 421, 442 

Shelley, Sir John, 564, 567 

Sheridan, Charles, 53 

Sheridan, Mrs. R. B., 4, 39, 52, 54,. 
55, 60, 72, 80-82, 620 

Sheridan, R. B., 4, 22, 46, 73, 78, 
141, 142, 146, 149, 157, 162, 165,. 
195, 202, 204, 659 ; his plan to 
substitute Council for Viceroy ia. 
Ireland, 16 ; Creevey's distrust of, 
21, 25 ; his diabolical project, 25 ; 
and Prince of Wales, 25, 26, 32, 
51-60, 68 ; his speech v. Melville, 
33 ; The Rivals, 55 ; Treasurer of 
the Navy in "All the Talents," 
81 ; ill, 84 ; on Grenville's resig- 
nation, 85 ; the Regency Bill, 138 ; 
and Whitbread, 159, 164, 180; 
Madame de Stael and, 189 ; his- 
death, 256 ; and Lord Dacre, 620 ; 
his letters to Creevey, 38, 39, 138 j 
to Mrs. Creevey, 39 

Sheridan, Thomas, 38, 39, 51, 190 

Sheridan, Mrs. Thomas, 38, 39 

Shiel, 523, 525 

Shoenfeld, 438 
_ Sicard, Brougham's courier, 297 



INDEX. 



707 



Sidmouth, Rt. Hon. Plenry Adding- 
ton, Speaker, created Viscount 
(nicknamed "the Doctor"), 4, 
43, 97, 114, 122, 123, 130, 147 ; 
Premier, 8 ; and Pitt, 9, 20, 23, 
26 ; war-clouds, 10 ; and Napo- 
leon, II; " this accursed apothe- 
cary," 14; and his colleagues, 19; 
Prince of Wales and, 25, 159, 
194 ; resigns, 26, 28 ; Privy Seal 
in " All the Talents," 75 ; Home 
Secretary, 166; for peace, 214; 
Queen Caroline's trial, 314; Tier- 
ney's attempt to enlist Creevey in 
support of, 352; "was never 
sober," 373 

Sidney, Sir Henry, 507 

Sierra Morena, 130 

Sieyes, Abbe, 190 

Simmonds, Dr., 28 

Siniavin, Admiral (Russia), 89 

Six's iron index, 2 

Slang, ladies' use of, 428 

Slave trade, 120, 167, 214 

Smiles, Dr., Alemoirofjohn Murray, 
528 

Smith, Adam, 264 

Smith, Alderman Christopher, 418 

Smith, Bobus, 617 

Smith, CuUen, 656 

Smith, Rev. Sydney, 166, 421, 490, 
585, 597, 610, 611, 665, 671 

Smith, Sir William, 81 

Smith, Thomas Assheton, 391 

Smyth, Jack, 230 

Sneyd, Rev. — (Brighton), 60 

Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge, 548 

Somerset, Lady Charlotte Douglas- 
Hamilton, Duchess of (wife of nth 
Duke), 406 

Somerset, Duchess of [nee Sheridan), 
wife of 1 2th Duke, Queen of Beauty 
at Eglington Tournament, 39 

Somerset, nth Duke of, 336, 406, 533 

Somerset, 12th Duke of, 533 

Somerset, Lord Charles, 474, 507 

Somerset, Lord Fitzroy (LordRaglan), 
416, 596, 631 

Soult, Marshal, loi, 102, 186, 220, 
412 

South American Colonies of Spain, 
86, 87 

Southey, Robert, 489 

Souza, Madame de (formerly Fla- 
hault), 6, 7, 251 

Souza, M. de, Portuguese Ambassa- 
dor, 62 



Sovilliano, 88 

Spain, 86-88, 90, 105, 403, 404 ; 

French invasion of, 394 
Spalding, Mrs. [nee Eden). See 

Brougham, Lady 
Speirs, Mrs. Alexander (afterwards 

Ellice), 615 
Speirs of EldersHe, Alexander, 615 
Spencer, George John, 2nd Earl 

of, 77, 214, 305, 308, 550, 597, 

637 
Spencer, 3rd Earl of. See Althorp, 

Viscount 
Spencer, Hon. and Very Rev. George, 

Superior of the Order of Passionists, 

550 
Spencer, Lord Robert, 13, 77, 121, 

490, 504, 538 
Spring Rice, Lord Monteagle, 449, 

450, 454, 456, 522, 611, 6l8, 637, 

640 
Spring, Sam, waiter at Cocoa Tree 

Club, 310 
Stael, Albert de, 381 
Stael, Albertine de, 184 
Stael, Madame de, 184, 189 ; her 

house at Geneva, 258 
Stafford, Lady, 274, 390 
Stafford, 2nd Marquess of, ist Duke 

of Sutherland, 27, 194, 216, 545, 

322, 328, 336, 390, 401 
Standish, 654 

Stanhope, 3rd Earl of, 277, 308 
Stanhope, Hon. Augustus, 533 
Stanhope, Hon. James Hamilton, 

277, 278, 454 
Stanhope, Mrs., 454 
Stanhope of Revesby Abbey, Banks, 

277 
Stanistreet, 208 
Sanley, Lord, 13th Earl of Derby, 

171, 418, 430 
Stanley, Edward, 14th Earl of Derby, 

382, 418, 470, 545, 568, 611, 624, 

626, 637, 639, 641, 651 ; Secretary 

for Ireland, 561, 607 ; and Durham, 

606; M.P. for Cheshire, 597; re- 
signs, 615, 618 ; split between 

Russell and, 615, 616 
Stanley, Lady Mary (afterwards Lady 

Wilton), 305 
Stanley, Mrs. Edward {nee Dillon), 

568, 597 
Star, 179 

Statesman, 107, 436 
Stephens, Catherine (Lady Essex), 

vocalist and actress, 628 
Stephenson, Henry Frederick, natural 



7o8 



JNDEX. 



son of I ith Duke of Norfolk, 348, 
3S9> 439, 449. 468, 497, 671 
Stephenson, Lady Mary {nh Keppel), 

439. 451 

Stepney, Tom, 149, 150 

Stevenson, the American Minister, 
664 

Stirling- Maxwell of Keir, Lady, 39 

Stormont, Viscount, 31 

Strafford, Lord, 652 

Strachan, Admiral Sir Richard, 95, 
97, 129, 131, 133 

Strathaven, Lady, 490 

Stratheden, Baroness, 654 

Strickland, 186 

Stuart, Lady Elizabeth, 326 

Stuart, Mr., 387 

Stuart, Mrs. Eliza (afterwards Moly- 
neux), 595 

Stuart de Rothesay, Lord (Sir Charles 
Stuart), British Minister at Brus- 
sels, 210, 227, 228, 486, 496, 

499 
Sturges, 20 
Suchet, General, 185 
Suffolk, 15th Earl of, 454: 
Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, 499 
Sunderland, Lord, 266 
Surrey, Earl and Countess of, 390 
Sussex, Duke of, 297, 345, 348, 417, 

451, 497. 571. 573, 600, 664, 665, 

671 ; "talked very sad stuff," 192 ; 

absent from Queen Caroline's trial, 

308 ; his stories of his cousin Olivia 

of Cumberland, 349 ; Creevey's 

tete-h-iSte with, 389 ; "it had been 

a z«alancholy day," 421; his two 

marriages, 585 
Sussex, Lady Augusta Murray, 

Duchess of, oS5 
Sussex, Lady Cecilia Buggin, Duchess 

of (created Duchess of Inverness), 

572, 585, 600, 671 
Sutherland, Dowager Duchess of, 245, 

648 
Sutherland, 1st Duke of, 27, I94, 

216, 245, 322, 328, 336 
Sutherland, 2nd Duke of, 389, 390, 

665 
Sutherland, Harriet Elizabeth 

Howard, Duchess of, 648, 665 
Sutton, Charles Manners, Speaker 

(Viscount Canterbury), 114, 271 
Suwarrow, Madame, 283 
Swift, Dean, 523 



Tabley, Lord and Lady de, 512 

Taglioni, 594, 625 

Talavera, 95, 105, 107, 123 

Talbot, 540 

Talleyrand, his Paris house, 5 ; de- 
mands evacuation of Malta, 10 ; 
Napoleon's abdication, 239 ; his. 
reputed son, General de Flahault, 
251, 613; Napoleon's Memoirsy 
368 ; and^Montron, 479, 480 ; and 
his niece, Madame de Dino, 559, 
5785 5^3. 604 ; cordiality between. 
England and France, 560 ; Creevey 
and, 591 ; Lady Grey's hatred of, 
605 ; Grey's changed tone towards^ 
611 ; Lady Keith, 612 ; kept away 
from Oxford, 621 ; Grey dining 
with, 628 ; on Melbourne, 651 

Tallien, Jean Lambert de, 7 

Tallien, Madame de (previously 
Comtesse de Fontenay), 6, 7 

Tankerville, Armandine, Countess of 
{nee de Grammont), 440, 494, 649. 

Tankerville, Charles, 4th Earl of, 
36, 158, 237 

Tankerville, Charles Augustus, 5th 
Earl of. See Ossulston, Lord 

Tankerville, Emma, Countess oi {nee 
Colebrooke), 36 

Tarleton, General Sir Banastre, 126, 
156, 169 

Tarragona, siege of, 185 

Tavistock, Marquess of (7th Duke of 
Bedford), his speech on Whitbread's 
death, 242 ; Bennet on, 257 ; to» 
move a vote of censure, 347, 353 ; 
"infinitely below himself," 354; 
Castlereagh and, 380, 384 ; at 
Newmarket, 421 ; half a buck 
from, 433 ; Church Reform Bill» 
597 ; split between Stanley and 
Russell, 616 ; Creevey on, 663 ; 
and Queen Victoria, 664, 666 

Taylor, Michael Angelo, his house 
in Whitehall a rendezvous of the 
Whigs, 118, 160, 161, 199, 211, 
212, 344, ;345, 361, 366, 384-386, 
402, 403, 407, 431-433, 442, 447, 
448, 458, 494, 497, 555, 557, 626 

Taylor, Mrs., M.A., 137, 140, 141, 
345, 370, 371, 380, 400, 402, 407, 
423, 431-433, 437, 455, 461, 462, 
463, 465, 471, 474, 490, 502, 507, 
526, 536, 550, 551, 561, 609 

Taylor, Sir Herbert, 466 ; the Garth 
case, 539, 542 



INDEX. 



709 



Tempest, Bart., Sir Harry Vane, of 

Wynyard, 400 
Tempest, Mr., 435 
Tennant, Dr., 2 
Tennyson, Clerk to the Board of 

Ordnance, 575, 583, 594 
Thackeray, W. M., Vanity Fair, 218 
Thanet, Sackville Tufton, 9th Earl of, 

120, 257, 295, 317, 318, 328, 336, 
348, 351. 353. 357, 404; Creevey's 
opinion of, 125, 1378 ; compares 
Prince Regent with Moliere's 
Bourgeois Gentilhomtne, 183 ; his 
illness, 243 ; Creevey M.P. for 
Appleby by favour of, 298 ; Queen 
Caroline's trial, 308, 313 ; his bet 
-with Sefton, 328 ; the Whigs little 
better than old apple-women, 331 ; 
a curious fact about yunitts, 350 ; 
letter to Creevey, 393 ; wins 
^{^40,000 at Paris Salon, 409 ; his 
death, 427, 507 

Thayer, Miss, 190 

Thermometer, Dr. Currie's clinical, 2 
Thetford, Creevey M.P. for, 3, 169 
Thomas, Captain, killed at Waterloo, 

565 

Thompson, B., 644, 645 

Thompson, Powlett, 611, 664 

Thornhill, Colonel, 530 

Thorpe, Lord Mayor, 340 

Thorpe, Miss, 340 

Thurlow, Lord, 30, 114; and Home 
Tooke, 60 ; Creevey on, 61 ; and 
Johnstone's port wine, 64 

Tierney, George, " Mother Cole," 
or "Old Cole," 68, 71, 94, 100, 
122, 123, 137, 162, 191, 200, 256, 
462, 499, 623, 655 ; incessantly in- 
triguing, 22 ; and Whitbread, no, 

121, 242 ; on Grey and Whitbread, 
III; proposes Petty or Cavendish 
as Whig leader, 112; '■'■ persotial 
^«^j//<7«j- never answer," 114 ; "will 
end in smoak," 124 ; the thanks of 
Parliament to Wellington, 126 ; 
his tricks, 127 ; " is doing very 
well," 217 ; his temporising plans, 
247 ; his style in speaking, 248 ; 
"expert, narrow, and wrong as 
ever," 251 ; selected as leader of 
Whigs, 265, 278, 290, 448; 
Wellington on, 278 ; his motion on 
the Bank forgeries, 292 ; his nick- 
name, 327 ; Creevey's attack on, 
329. 330, 336; Brougham his 
fellow-counsellor, 344 ; and Decaze, 
346 ; his inveterate folly, 347 ; 



attempts to enlist Creevey as 

Addington's supporter, 352 ; "the 

Venerable," 465 ; P.C, 483 
Tighe, Lady Louisa, 526, 527 
Tighe, Mrs., 429 
Tighe of Woodstock, Hon, W. F., 

524, 526, 527 
Times, 357, 390, 561, 562, 565, 579, 

599, 650, 652, 658 
Tindal, 328 

Titchfield, Lord, 413, 442 
Tomline, George (previously Prety- 

man), Bishop of Lincoln, 202 
Tooke, Home, 60, 61 
Tories, under Pitt, 3 ; and Roman 

Catholic Emancipation, 535 
Torres Vedras, 131 
Towneley, Charles, 654 
Towneley, Lady Caroline {nee Moly- 

neux), 654 
Townshend, Lord John, 13, 125, 184 
Trafalgar, 44, 69 
Traveller, 342 
Trippe, Baron, 221 
Tufnell, 81 
Tullamore, Lord, 630 
Turkey, and Greece, 475 ; and 

Russia, 481 
Twiss, Horace, 354 
Tynte, Mr. Kemeys-, 655 
Tyrone, Earl of (ist Marquess of 

Waterford), 469 
Tyrrell, John, 578 

Tyrwhitt, Sir Thomas, Black Rod, 
..I 329* 340> 462 ; the Queen's trial, 

306 ; George IV. 's illness, 446, 539 



U 



Ulm, capitulation of, 44, 45 
Ultras, the, 489 

Useful Knowledge, Library of, 549 
Uxbridge, Earl of (afterwards 2nd 
Marquess of Anglesey), 2B0, 573 



V 



Valenciennes, 282, 283 

Van de Weyer, Belgian Minister, 671 

VanMerlen, General, 230 

Vane, Mr., 438 

Vane-Tempest, Bart., Sir Harry, 4D0 

Vansittart, N. (afterwards Lord 
Bexley), " Mouldy," 114, 262, 342, 
471 ; on Whitbread's death, 242 ; 
his attempt to punish Creevey, 351 



7IO 



INDEX. 



Vaughan, " Hat, " 2oS, 236 

Verbyst, 293 

Vernon, Edward Venables, Arch- 
bishop of York, 328, 337 

Vernon, Sir Charles, 162, 405 

Verona Congress, 394, 402, 404 

Victor, Marshal, 190, 223, 225 

Victoria, Queen, 343, 393, 570, 599, 
652, 663-678 ; her accession, 664 ; 
her reception of Lyndhurst, 665 ; 
Melbourne's health, 667 ; Creevey 
presented to, 668 ; Hayter the 
artist, 672 ; Melbourne on, 674 ; 
and Durham, 677 ; her generosity 
to the Fitzclarences and Sir John 
Lade, 677, 678 

Vienna Congress, 213 

Villa Real, Marquess, 509 

Villeneuve, Admiral, 69 

Villiers, John, 136, 140 

Villiers, Viscoimt, 653 

Vimeira, battle of, 237 

Viotti, the violinist, 148 

Vitry, 280 

Vittoria, battle of, 535 

Vivian, Sir Hussey, afterwards Lord, 

309 

Voeykoff, Mdlle., 69 
Voltaire, 2 



W 

Waithman, Robert, 129-131, 341, 

360 
Walcheren Expedition, 93, 95, 96, 

118, 124, 127, 129, 131, 250 
Waldegrave, Countess, 246 
Waldegrave, Earl, 246, 609 
Walker, Mr. and Mrs., 528 
Wallachia, 481 
Walpole, George, 47 
Walpole, Horace, 505, 603, 609 
Walpole Sir Robert, 588, 609 
Walsham, Lady, 577 
Walter, M.P. for Berkshire, pro- 
prietor of Times, 650 
Ward, John William. Sec Dudley, 

1st Earl of 
Ward, Lord, 2nd Earl of Dudley, 675 
Ward, Robert, 45 
Wardle, Colonel, 97, 112, 113, 115, 

116 
Warner, 66, 68 
AVarren, Charles, lawyer, 60, 113, 

350 
Warrender, Lady Julia [iik Maitland), 

209, 402 



Warrender, of Lochead, Sir George, 
4th Baronet, 127, 402, 416, 509, 
553 

Warrender, Sir John, 5th Baronet, 
209, 402, 418 

Warwick, Lord, 247, 349 

Waterford, Marchioness of, 469 

Waterford, ist Marquess of, 469 

Waterloo, 173, 230 

Waters, Colonel, loi 

Watley, Colonel, 67 

Waverers, the, 586 

Wear, Whitbread's valet, 242 

Webster, Lady Frances, 255 

Webster, Sir Godfrey, 255 

Weekly Political Registej; Cobbett's, 

89> i32» 133 

Weissenberg, Herr, 604 

Wellesley, Marchioness of, 70, 590 

Wellesley, Marquess of, 95, 113, 164, 
175, 627, 630 ; the Copenhagen 
Expedition, 85 ; attacks on his 
Indian administration, 86, 90 ; the 
revolution in Spanish South 
America, 86, 118 ; Whitbread 
hostile to, 88 ; Foreign Secretary, 
96, 118 ; " the Atlas of the falling 
State," 1I23 ; Portuguese soldiers, 
130; resigns office, 153, 175 ; and 
Lord Holland, 154 ; Prince Regent 
and, 154, 156-159, 161, 163 ; " our 
new patron," 157 ; Prime Minister, 
158, 163 ; and Sheridan, 159 ; and 
Canning, 161, 162 ; Paul), 226 ; 
"there seems an idea of," 358, 
362 ; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
405, 609, 670 ; Reform Bill, 589 ; 
letter to Creevey, 669 

Wellesley, Sir Henry, Lord Cowley, 
218, 605, 662 

Wellington, Duke of, "the Beau," 
95. 113. 132, 148, 217, 260, 267, 
303, 307. 337. 360, 362, 384, 386, 
421, 459. 482, 576, 611, 615, 626, 
645 ; Secretary for Ireland, 86 ; 
2nd Peninsular War, 87-90, 93 ; 
3rd Peninsular War, passage of the 
Douro, 101-105, 109 ; Talavera, 
107, 123, 125 ; Perceval's notice of 
thanks, 124-127 ; a pension for, 
128; "Portuguese are now the 
fighting cocks of the army," 128 ; 
Hutchinson on, 130 ; Torres Ve- 
dras, 131 ; Siege of Badajos, 145 ; 
Congreve's rockets, 147 ; siege of 
Burgos, 173 ; on General Murray's 
operations, 185 ; in winter quarters 
on French soil, 187 ; the thanks of 



INDEX. 



711 



the House of Commons, 198 ; 
British Plenipotentiary at Vienna 
Congress, 213 ; predicts a Re- 
public in Paris, 215, 226 ; in com- 
mand of the Allies in Belgium, 

218 J composition of his forces, 

219 ; Waterloo, 221-231, 235-239 ; 
Lord Holland z/., 246; Kinnaird 
and the Marinet incident, 273, 276 ; 
extracts from Creevey's journal 
about, 276-2S9 ; on the English 
Princes, 277 ; on Tierney, 278 ; on 
the Prince Regent's figure, 279 ; 
Duke of Kent, 282, 284 ; Riche- 
lieu, 285 ; on Grey and Lans- 
downe, 286 ; Canning's and Whit- 
bread's sparring bout, 287 ; with- 
draws Array of Occupation, 288 ; 
on Lowe, 289 ; his " scrape " when 
Lord Lieutenant of Hants, 348 ; 
violent against Queen Caroline, 
356 ; ill, 391 ; the Verona Congress, 
394, 402 ; France v. Spain, 406 ; 
and Duke of York, 409 ; and Can- 
ning, 445, 453, 463, 477 ; resigns 
Command - in - Chief, 446, 465 ; 
Creevey's confidence in, 452 ; re- 
signs office, 454, 455 ; " curious 
times these, Duke ! " 463 ; and 
Brougham, 464 ; correspondence 
with George IV. as to Com- 
mand-in- Chief, 465, 466 ; Com- 
mander-in-Chief, 473, 477 ; iden- 
tifying himself with the Old Tories, 
473 ; Lady Jersey and, 475, 
574 ; Goderich's resignation, 483 ; 
Prime Minister, 486, 495, 538 ; 
stands firm, 489 ; Grey satisfied 
with, 493; "will do capitally," 
494 ; and the new Buckingham 
Palace, 498 ; his view of Corn 
Laws, 500 ; Huskisson's resigna- 
tion, 500, 501 ; and George IV., 
501 ; his "horrible appointments," 
502 ; and the Roman Catholic 
question, 512, 532, 535, 536, 540, 
541 ; recalls Anglesey from Ireland, 
516, 535-537 ; and Lady Louisa 
Tighe, 526; his intentions about 
Ireland, 528 ; duel with Winchilsea, 
541, 542 ; a fall from his horse, 
543 ; Brougham on, 550 ; in tip- 
top spirits, 552 ; and William IV., 
554, 638, 640 ; at opening of Liver- 
pool and Manchester Railway, 555 ; 
on Brougham as Chancellor, 560 ; 
and Sir John Shelley, 564 ; George 
IV.'s executor, 575, 662 ; the 



Ordnance tents, 575 ; Lord Hill 
votes against, 582 ; fails to form 
Ministry, 586, 588, 589 ; mobbed, 
590 ; the Irish Church Bill, 600 ; 
at Lord Cowley's wedding, 605 ; 
Chancellor of Oxford University, 
621 ; Mrs. Arbuthnot's death, 628 ; 
removes Duke of Clarence from 
office of Lord High Admiral, 642 ; 
his evidence before Flogging Com- 
mission, 652 ; Mrs. Fitzherbert, 
661, 662 

Wellington Despatches, Civil and 
Military, 87, 128, 131, 185, 273, 
304, 395. 465. 466, 656, 657, 
666 

Werneck, 44 

Western, Charles Callis (" Squire 
Western"), created Baron Western 
of Kavenhall, 114, 313, 339, 327, 
578, 652 ; on the Castlereagh- 
Canning duel, 98 ; Folkestone 
and Mrs. Clarke, 115, 116; on 
Brougham's Treaty of Paris speech, 
249; "no superior mind amongst 
us," 251 ; on agricultural depression, 
etc., 252 ; Queen Caroline's trial, 
310 ; on the abandonment of the 
Divorce clause, 319 ; on Cobbett, 
334 ; at the Lord Mayor's dinner, 
340 ; his letters to Creevey, 98, 
249, 251, 319, 334 

Westmacott, editor of The Age, 542 

Westminster, 2nd Marquess of, 602 

Westminster Revirw, 440 

Westmorland, Earl of, 159, 447, 454, 
470, 51B 

Wetherell, Sir Charles, Attorney- 
General, 566, 590 

Wharncliffe, Lord, 584, 586 

Whateley, Councillor, 573 

Whetham, General, 150 

Whigs, under Grenville, 3 ; schism 
between Radicals and, 260 ; their 
fusion with the Canningite Ministry, 

477 

Whishaw, J., 5, iii, 138, 250 

Whitbread, Lady Elizabeth, 109, 157, 
196, 495 

Whitbread, Miss, 139 

Whitbread, Samuel, 13, 14, 34, 114, 
12S, 139, 141, 156, 157, 173, 182, 
185, 207, 217, 459 ; Sheridan and 
Adair, 22 ; impeachment of Mel- 
ville, 33, 88 ; the Boyd, Benfield 
and Co, incident, 35, 36 ; opposes 
war policy of Government, 88 ; 
Cintra Convention, 89 ; and Sir 

3 B 



712 



INDEX. 



Arthur Wellesley, 103-105 ; dis- 
cusses nothing but politics with 
Creevey, 109 ; and Tierney, 1 10, 
112 ; the " old trader," 118 ; Pon- 
sonby and, 121; "stout and 
strong," 123 ; the Walcheren Ex- 
pedition, 131 ; Creevey's advice as 
to Office, 137, 140 ; his offer to 
Creevey, 142, 143 ; his projected 
exclusion from the Cabinet, 158, 
183; and R. B. Sheridan, 159, 
164, 165, 180 ; Brougham, 177 ; 
the only peacemaker, 1 79 ; his two 
capital blunders, 181 ; correspond- 
ence with Tom Sheridan, 190 ; 
Princess Charlotte and Prince of 
Orange, 197 ; against grant to 
Wellington, 198 ; Princess of 
Wales' letter to, and his reply, 
200, 201 ; his strange backward- 
ness about Westminster, 204; "all 
for Boney," 214 ; commits suicide, 
240-244, 249, 383, 384., 386; a 
sparring bout with Canning, 287 ; 
Grey and, 460; his letters to 
Creevey, 88-90, 94, 99, in, 117, 

193. 195. 199 
Whitbread, Samuel, son of above, 

413 

Whitbread, William, 413 

Whitworth, Lord, British Ambas- 
sador at Paris, stormy interview 
with Napoleon, 10 ; leaves Paris, 
13 ; his liaison at St. Petersburg, 

67 

Wilberforce, William, M,P, for Hull, 
36, 99 ; an inimitable speech for 
peace, 15; and Brougham, 30 ; 
Sydney Smith on, 167 ; his opinion 
of Whitbread, 242 ; on exclusion 
of Queen Caroline's name from 
Liturgy, 306 ; and Lord John Rus- 
sell, 309; a frustrated intention, 
418 

Wilbraham, 298 

Wilde, Sir Thomas (afterwards Lord 
Truro), 328; present at Queen 
Caroline's death, 363, 364; her 
funeral arrangements, 366 

Wilkie, Sir David, 664 

William IV., Duke of Clarence, 46, 
47, 50, 62, 190, 277, 314, 345, 441, 
667 ; letter to Creevey, 32 ; present 
at the Pearce-GuUy prize-fight, 64 ; 
and the Bank Note Bill, 146 ; 
Duke of Kent on, 268-270 ; ill, 
272 ; " that Prince of Black- 
guards," 298 ; his vote v. Queen 



Caroline, 339; "our Billy is a 
wag," 446 ; ^9000 a year for, 448 j 
and Lady Sefton, 554 ; his wish 
to hi comfortable, 566 ; dismisses 
Seymour and Meynell from his. 
household, 567 ; " I beg you won't 
kneel, Lord Derby," 568 ; Grey's 
appeal for dissolution, 569-571 ;■ at 
the Opera, 570 ; his greeting to 
Creevey, 571 ; and Grey, 573,586- 
588, 616, 618, 628 ; his Corona- 
tion, 577 ; and the Duchess of 
Kent, 580 ; peer-making, 583, 586,, 
587 ; the Reform Bill, 586, 606 ; 
commands Wellington to form ad- 
ministration, 586 ; and Brougham, 
588, 660 ; his gracious behaviour 
to Creevey, 600-602 ; " exactly so. 
Ma'am," 604 ; at Olivia de Ros' 
wedding, 605 ; sends for Mel- 
bourne, 624-626, 627 ; and Coke's 
speech against George III., 636 ; 
dismisses Melbourne, sends for 
Wellington, 638-640 ; reprimanded 
and removed (when Duke of 
Clarence) from office of Lord 
High Admiral, 642 ; his 70th 
birthday, 650 ; his death, 663 ; his 
last act, 664 ; his generosity to Sir 
John Lade, 677 

Williams, John, 381 

Williams, Owen, 99, in 

Williams, Sir Thomas Hanbury, 380,, 
381 

Williamson, Sir Hedworth, 423 

Willoughby, d'Eresby, Lady (Dow- 
ager, Lady Gwydyr), 311 

Wilmot, a house-painter at Warwick, 
339 

Wilson, the artist, 663 

Wilson, M,P. for City, 27S 

Wilson, General Sir Robert ( " Jaffa " 
Wilson), 240, 368, 374, 406, 410, 
437, 449, 611 ; History of the 
British Expeditioii to JEgypt, 312 ;. 
letter from Taylor to, 432 

Wilson, Harriet, 294 

Wilson, Richard, 642 

Wilson, Sir M., 456 

Wilton, Lady Mary Stanley, Countess 

of, 305, 390. 423. 425. 545 
Wilton, 3rd Earl of, 423, 424, 442, 

470, 471 
Winchester, Lord Mayor, 650 
Winchilsea, Countess of {nee Bagot), 

671 
Winchilsea, 9th Earl of, his duel 

with Wellington, 541, 542 



INDEX. 



7^3 



Windham, Mr,, 9, 19-21, 38, 397 

Windsor, Mrs., 47 

Winslow, Lord, 62 

WolcoU, John, "Peter Pindar," T/u^ 

Loiisiad, 371 
Wood, Alderman, his sujjport of 

Queen Caroline, 202, 302, 318, 356, 

359. 360 
Wood, Mr., Lord Grey's Secretary, 

584. 591, 592 
Woodville, Mrs., 279 
Woronzow, Count, 283-285 
Wortley, 160, 442 
Wrights, the, 112, 113, 115 
Wyatt, the architect, 631 
Wykeham, Miss, 272 
Wyndham, General Sir Henry, o07 
Wyndham, Hon. Charles, 506 
Wyndham, Hon, Mrs. (daughter of 

Lord Charles Somerset), 507 
Wyndham, Hon. William, 506 
Wyndham, Miss, 506 
Wynn, Rt. Hon. Charles W. 

Williams, 128, 194, 214, 271, 412, 

455. 
Wynn, Sir W. W., 282, 373 



Yarborough, Lord, 30S 

Yarmouth, Earl of, 150, 533 ; Castle- 
reagh's second in duel with Can- 
ning, 97 ; Sheridan and, 146, 195 ; 
Prince Regent and, 149 ; the 
Couriej; 179; "preaches peace at 
the corners of all the streets," 214 

York, Duchess of, 182, 183, 305, 369 

York, Duke of, 17, 31, 34, 44, 53, 
123, 146, 150, 294, 297, 345, 349, 
403, 421, 431, 442, 499, 667 ; Com- 
mander-in-Chief, 63 ; Prince of 
Wales and, 63, 159 ; Mrs. Clarke, 
97, 112, 115, 124, 151, 310, 344; 
motion to reinstate as Commander- 
in-Chief, 140, 147 ; his debts, 209 ; 
"so tipsy," 184; Duke of Kent on, 
268, 271 ; "won't live long," 298 ; 
Queen Caroline's trial, 314, 339 ; 
Lauderdale's story, 369 ; at Ascot, 
419 ; the insidious Scroop, 420 ; 
his natural son, 439 ; building a 
new palace, 441 ; his death and 
funeral, 446, 448 

Yorke, Mr., 127, 137 

Young, Mr., Lord Melbourne's 
Secretary, 653 

Younger, an English merchant from 
Riga, 632 



THE END. 



PRINTED BV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES, 



»S9 



^- 



ml 



~7^ 






N'^ 



fiO " 




























v* ^ '°S;j;i^'^ ^ ^ ^' 



s* .^ ."^ -.^^i^/ 









OO 



0" *V./?:^% -^^^ .'^'^ .% 






•^ r A ■•' ', -^ 






^(\ Si />^ ^ ^ .00^' 










A 


V 


. = ^, 








* i 




x° 


°^ 










Ci. «- 


V-i 






o^ * 


8 




'■ n 


-^ 


. 


> 


C' 








'?^^ 









*f > 






'^' 









o 0^ . ^' , 



W ■* 0>' <^r, - "V* ^ ''- 



^^'' '^^.> 









N^"^ 



0,7 ^ 






..x^ 



x^^^. 









..-^^ 












ftV 





















^OO^ 









'V '' ■, . 



A"^- 






\^ 






^^-' 



020 702 472 7 






' ' '^'.'i' i' r..'i'- \".i' • *'/• M 

''■' 'i ^'' I :v'^''.i ■u^^^^ 

:'■'/■'■.'■-■' "':!w;,;'»>(h;;^:: 
■../'^; ''-^hi #nt: 



i^M'fi;.;!^: 









'I'M 






